Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
As the calendar flips, the New Year’s tax deadline is colliding with a fragile moment for gold, silver, and the Dow, turning routine portfolio housekeeping into a potential market shock. Investors racing to lock in losses or gains before the Internal Revenue Service cutoff could unleash a wave of selling that hits everything from blue…
The Internal Revenue Service is lifting the standard mileage allowance for 2026 to 72.5 cents per mile, a small but meaningful bump that will ripple through expense reports, tax returns, and payroll systems across the country. The move builds on a sharp increase for 2025 and reflects the agency’s ongoing effort to keep pace with…
President Donald Trump’s signature tax package, the One Big Beautiful Bill, is about to collide with the first filing season that fully reflects its changes, and many working households are being told to expect more cash back at tax time. Accountants and policy analysts say the mix of richer credits, new deductions and adjusted withholding…
California’s most powerful healthcare union is betting that voters are ready to single out a tiny group of ultra-wealthy residents and send a shockwave through the tax code. Its proposed “billionaire tax” would hit just 255 people but aims to raise roughly $100 billion for health care and schools, turning the state into a test…
American households are being told to brace for something unusual next filing season: a wave of much bigger tax refunds than they have seen in years. The shift is being driven by a new tax law, changing withholding patterns and a White House that has explicitly promised a historic payout moment for filers. At the…
Millions of households are being told to brace for unusually big checks when they file their 2025 returns in early 2026, with officials openly talking about typical families coming out ahead by roughly $1,000 to $2,000 compared with recent years. The driver is a sweeping new tax package that reshapes how much is taken out…
The Internal Revenue Service is digging out from a shutdown hangover that has left it working through weeks of accumulated mail, returns, and calls. That pileup is not just an internal headache, it is slowing refunds, stalling business cash flow, and stretching out audits in ways that directly hit household budgets. The agency is now…
President Donald Trump is leaning hard into a new economic promise: that Americans are about to enjoy the biggest tax refund season in U.S. history. His advisers say the combination of a fresh tax law and quirks in how employers handled withholdings will translate into unusually large checks for households next spring. I want to…
Voters have heard the slogan so often it sounds like settled law: no taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security. The reality is more complicated. The new tax package reshapes how those earnings are treated, but it does it through targeted deductions and phase‑outs, not a blanket repeal of federal income tax on every dollar…
Millions of Americans are on track to see noticeably fatter tax refunds in 2026, with some households projected to collect roughly $1,000 more than they typically receive. The shift is being driven by a new federal tax law, updated withholding tables, and a set of targeted breaks that favor certain income ranges and family situations….