Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Vivek Ramaswamy is running for Ohio governor on a sweeping promise to wipe out state income taxes and sharply cut property taxes, casting himself as a crusader against what he portrays as a bloated government. Critics have responded by branding him an “anti-tax fairy,” arguing that his numbers do not come close to adding up…
The Internal Revenue Service is giving a quiet head start to millions of taxpayers this year, effectively opening a back door to file before the official start of tax season. Anyone who earned $89,000 or less in 2025 can use the agency’s Free File system to submit a return early, potentially locking in a refund…
President Donald Trump is signaling that the next frontier in his tax agenda could be the family home, hinting that a lucrative business write off might soon be available to ordinary homeowners. By floating the idea of letting people depreciate their primary residences, he is effectively inviting voters to imagine a world where the tax…
President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of replacing the federal income tax with tariffs, telling Americans that future federal operations could be funded without traditional income levies. If that vision ever moved from rally line to law, the shock would not be evenly distributed, and some states would be far more exposed than…
President Donald Trump’s signature tax package, The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, is quietly reshaping how retirees are taxed, from their Social Security benefits to the deductions they can claim. The law layers new breaks on top of existing rules, but many of the most generous provisions are temporary, which means waiting to adjust your…
Pulling more than $5,000 in cash out of a checking or savings account feels like a simple errand, but inside the banking system it flips a series of quiet switches that can slow you down. I am looking at what actually happens when you ask for that kind of money, from branch cash shortages to…
California’s looming capital flight is not a distant risk but an active force that is already reshaping who lives in the state, which companies stay, and where innovation happens. As high earners, major corporations, and investors reconsider their ties, the result could be a brutal remaking of California’s tax base, job market, and housing landscape…
Business owners and real estate investors have quietly regained access to one of the most aggressive tax breaks in the code: a full, first‑year write off on qualifying assets that can easily top six figures. Under President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill, 100 percent bonus depreciation has been restored for a wide range of purchases,…
When I asked an AI to walk through what would actually happen if President Donald Trump somehow made federal income tax disappear, the response was not a libertarian fantasy. It was a spreadsheet horror story. Instead of a clean break from the IRS, the model described a vast funding crater, a scramble for new taxes,…
New York City is staring at a projected $12 billion budget gap that evokes the worst days of the 2008 financial crisis, and the political response is already hardening into a fight over who pays to close it. Rather than treat the shortfall as a reason to retrench, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is using the crisis…