The financial news that actually matters
Americans who leave a job during or after the calendar year they turn 55 can pull money from that employer’s 401(k) plan without paying the 10 percent early-distribution penalty that normally applies before age 59 and a half. The rule, written into federal tax law at 26 U.S. Code Section 72(t)(2)(A)(v), is often called the…
Families with qualifying children will see a larger federal tax credit starting with their 2026 returns. Congress set the child tax credit at $2,200 per qualifying child under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, replacing the prior amount and building in an automatic annual inflation adjustment. The IRS has already begun publishing 2026 figures tied…
Americans who turned 73 in 2025 face a hard deadline that did not exist two years ago: they must pull money from traditional IRAs and workplace retirement plans or hand the IRS a quarter of the amount they failed to withdraw. The required minimum distribution age shifted from 72 to 73 under the Consolidated Appropriations…
Prospective homeowners trying to break into the market face a measurement problem that shapes the policies and programs designed to help them. The widely cited figure that first-time buyers accounted for 35% of recent home sales comes from industry survey data, but a separate federal framework for tracking these buyers produces a different picture. The…
Households holding more than a quarter-million dollars at a single bank face a straightforward but often misunderstood protection: the FDIC insures up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. For couples who open a joint account, that ceiling effectively doubles to $500,000 at the same institution, covering $250,000 per co-owner. The distinction…
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged money manager Henry Paul Regan with conspiracy and fraud for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that raised more than $60 million from investors and caused losses exceeding $50 million. The charges, brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, allege Regan used two entities, Next…
Thousands of American importers that paid tariffs later struck down by the Supreme Court are still waiting for their money. The federal government collected roughly $166 billion under tariffs imposed through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), but only about $22 billion has been returned so far. With the administration now moving to appeal…
Savers holding cash at the largest U.S. banks are earning a fraction of what they could collect by moving that same money to an online high-yield savings account. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s published national average for savings deposits sits at 0.38 percent, while many online competitors advertise annual percentage yields between 3 and 5…
Homeowners paying private mortgage insurance on a conventional loan are entitled to automatic relief once their principal balance drops to 78% of the home’s original value, a protection written into federal law since 1998. Yet many borrowers continue sending monthly PMI checks long after they could have requested cancellation at the earlier 80% threshold, a…
Three sales executives admitted in federal court this month to defrauding investors through a scheme that raised approximately $528 million by selling pre-IPO shares, with roughly $88.6 million secretly siphoned through undisclosed markups. Robert Cassino entered his guilty plea on February 18, 2026, followed by Raymond John Pirrello Jr. and Joseph Passalaqua on March 3,…