The financial news that actually matters
A retiree who arranges pension or IRA withdrawals to cover living expenses can still end up owing a penalty on next spring’s tax return, even in a year that otherwise ends with a refund. That is because the IRS does not judge underpayment at the finish line. The penalty is measured across four periods spread…
Joining a Medicare Advantage plan can feel like a one-way decision, especially once a retiree hears how medical underwriting can lock people out of the private Medigap market later in life. Federal rules soften that risk during the first year: a person who tries Medicare Advantage and decides it is not working can, within a…
A retiree who assumes Medicare will step in if a parent, spouse, or they themselves eventually need full-time nursing home care is planning around a coverage gap that Medicare’s own website spells out in plain language: it does not pay for long-term care. The confusion is understandable, since Medicare does pay for stays in skilled…
Survivor benefits usually bring to mind a spouse or a minor child, but Social Security also recognizes an older parent who depended financially on an adult child. When that child dies, a dependent parent 62 or older can, under specific conditions, step into the survivor benefit system just as a widow or widowed spouse would….
A widow or widower weighing whether to remarry rarely thinks of Social Security as part of the decision, but for anyone still under 60, it can be. Remarrying too early can permanently cut off a survivor benefit that might otherwise have paid out for decades, while waiting past a specific birthday removes that risk entirely….
Most people think of Social Security’s family benefits as something that stops once a child grows up. There’s a lasting exception: an adult whose disability began in childhood or young adulthood can keep drawing a monthly check on a parent’s earnings record well into their own middle age, and often for the rest of their…
Federal agencies picked up new authority this month over who survives a staff cut and who does not, and the deciding factor is no longer mostly a matter of who was hired first. A rule finalized by the Office of Personnel Management rewrites the ranking system used in a reduction in force, moving each employee’s…
A borrower financing a new car, truck or SUV in 2025 or later can, for the first time in decades, deduct a portion of the interest paid on that loan from federal taxable income. The break runs through 2028 and caps at $10,000 a year. The catch sits in the fine print the IRS added…
Medicare will spend more than $13 billion this year rewarding private insurers for hitting quality targets in their Medicare Advantage plans, with one company alone in line for nearly $4 billion of it — a program that continues to grow even as the number of plans actually earning the money shrinks. The Quality Bonus Program’s…
A major hospital system on Florida’s Gulf Coast is walking away from every contract it has with UnitedHealthcare, a split that will leave its hospitals and physicians out-of-network for tens of thousands of insured patients, including a large share of Medicare Advantage members, starting in the new year. Lee Health’s Break With UnitedHealthcare Becomes Official…
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