Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Millions of Americans were told they would not be punished for falling behind on their taxes during the pandemic, only to discover later that a technical failure inside the Internal Revenue Service quietly cut them out of that relief. Instead of automatic penalty forgiveness, some taxpayers saw unexpected bills, smaller refunds, or no refund at…
President Donald Trump has opened a new front in his long war with the tax authorities, filing a $10 billion lawsuit that accuses the federal government of failing at the most basic promise of the tax system: keeping personal returns secret. The complaint, lodged in Miami federal court, targets the Internal Revenue Service and the…
The Internal Revenue Service does not need to knock on your door or pore over your receipts to reach into your checking account. Its power to take money directly from a bank rests on collection tools that operate separately from the traditional audit process, and they can move faster than most taxpayers expect. I want…
The Treasury Department has taken the extraordinary step of cutting off one of Washington’s most entrenched contractors after a former employee leaked private tax data for President Donald Trump and other ultra-wealthy Americans. By terminating every agreement with Booz Allen Hamilton, officials are signaling that a single breach inside the Internal Revenue Service can now…
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has ordered a nationwide cleanup of its rental assistance rolls after an internal review flagged thousands of ineligible or fictitious tenants, including people who are dead or lack required documentation. The agency has given local housing authorities and private landlords just 30 days to scrub their files, a…
Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires from 24 countries have chosen the World Economic Forum in Davos as the stage to deliver a blunt message to political and business elites: tax us more, and use that money to repair the social contract. Their open letter argues that extreme wealth is not a private achievement to be…
President Donald Trump has signed a new law tightening the rules around IRS “math error” notices, forcing the agency to show its work and giving taxpayers a clearer, enforceable 60-day window to push back. The change turns what used to be a confusing, high-stakes form letter into a more transparent process that taxpayers can actually…
For Americans 65 and older, the 2025 and 2026 tax years are unusually generous. A new senior-focused deduction stacks on top of already elevated standard deductions, creating a chance to shield tens of thousands of dollars from federal income tax. The challenge is less about finding tax breaks and more about understanding how they interact…
Wealth league tables promise clarity, ranking countries by how fairly they share prosperity. Yet when those scorecards label the Netherlands and the USA as outliers, they often obscure more than they reveal. I argue that the way we measure inequality, and the stories we tell around those numbers, misfires badly in both places. Instead of…
President Trump has turned immigration enforcement into one of the defining projects of his presidency, and the scale is now visible on streets, in detention centers, and deep inside the federal budget. His signature tax and spending cuts package quietly unlocked a vast stream of money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, creating what critics describe…