Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The fight over who gets to own tax season in the United States is no longer just about software features or slick ads. The IRS is trying to normalize truly free filing, while TurboTax and its parent Intuit are working just as hard to keep paid products at the center of the experience. Whether free…
Tax season is always a stress test for household budgets, but the 2026 filing season for 2025 returns is shaping up to be unusually fraught. A sweeping new tax law, agency layoffs, and technology changes are converging in ways that lawmakers say could slow the money that millions of families count on each spring. I…
Millions of retirees are about to get a rare piece of good news from the tax code. A new federal deduction worth up to $6,000 per eligible taxpayer is designed to shrink how much of their Social Security benefits ever gets taxed, and the break is locked in through 2028. For seniors who live on…
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…
Working Americans are being told to brace for an unusually big cash bump, with federal tax changes and special deposits combining into refunds that could reach roughly $2,000 per household. That kind of money can plug holes in a strained budget or jump‑start longer term goals, but it will not stretch far if it disappears…
Older taxpayers now have access to some of the most generous standard deduction rules on record, and the stakes are high for anyone trying to stretch retirement income. The federal tax code offers an extra deduction once you reach age 65, and recent law changes have layered on a new “senior bonus” that can sharply…
A federal judge has upheld a Trump-era surcharge on certain H-1B visa petitions that can push the total government bill for a single worker toward $100,000, cementing one of the most aggressive cost barriers ever imposed on skilled immigration. The ruling keeps in place a policy that sharply distinguishes between employers recruiting talent from abroad…
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…