Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The Trump administration is calling the 2026 tax filing season the largest in U.S. history for refunds, and early IRS data backs up at least part of that claim. As millions of Americans file returns for tax year 2025, the average refund check has jumped noticeably compared to the prior year, driven by inflation adjustments…
California voters could face a ballot measure this November that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires living in the state, with the vast majority of the revenue directed toward health care services including Medi-Cal. The proposal, formally titled the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, targets residents whose net worth exceeded $1…
Thousands of taxpayers face the prospect of refiling their federal returns after a series of IRS processing failures, social media-driven filing errors, and e-file rejections created a backlog that federal watchdogs say is affecting millions of people. With the 2025 filing season set to begin on January 27 and the April 15 deadline looming, the…
The Treasury Department and IRS released guidance confirming that workers who earn tips can deduct up to $25,000 in qualified tip income from their federal taxes for tax years 2025 through 2028. The new deduction, created under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, is retroactive to 2025 but will not change paychecks right away because…
The White House declared the 2026 filing season the “biggest tax refund season ever,” projecting that refunds would rise by $1,000 or more thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law on July 4, 2025. Early IRS data shows average refund checks climbing 10.9% compared with the same point last year, but…
The Florida House has passed a proposed constitutional amendment that would exempt homestead properties from all non-school property taxes, a measure that now awaits Senate action. The bill, CS/CS/HJR 203, would strip cities and counties of one of their most reliable revenue streams, and municipalities like Miramar in Broward County are already calculating what the…
Millions of Americans aged 65 and older may owe zero federal income tax on their 2025 returns, thanks to a stack of new and expanded deductions signed into law last summer. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, enacted as Public Law 119-21 on July 4, 2025, raised the standard deduction, created a brand-new…
Missouri lawmakers are pushing to slash the rate at which the state taxes personal property such as cars, trucks, and boats, a move that could cut assessment levels nearly in half. HB 903, which emerged from the House Special Committee on Tax Reform, would phase down the personal property assessment percentage to 18% of true…
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proposed a 9.5% property tax increase for New York City homeowners as a contingency measure inside his $127 billion Fiscal Year 2027 preliminary budget. The hike, which the administration frames as a last resort if Albany rejects a separate tax on wealthy residents, would generate $3.7 billion in new revenue and…
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, created a new tax deduction specifically for Americans aged 65 and older that could eliminate federal taxes on Social Security benefits for most retirees. The deduction is available for tax years 2025 through 2028, but the IRS has confirmed it will not…