The financial news that actually matters
Seniors who qualify for the new $6,000 enhanced deduction on their 2025 federal tax returns will not receive it automatically. The IRS has confirmed that the benefit requires filing a brand-new form, Schedule 1-A, attached to a completed Form 1040 or 1040-SR. For eligible taxpayers born before Jan. 2, 1961, the stakes are straightforward: skip…
Millions of Medicare beneficiaries are paying more for Part B coverage in 2026 after the standard monthly premium rose to $202.90, up from $185.00 last year. For higher-income enrollees, the bill is steeper: surcharges push the top monthly premium to $689.90. The increase, driven by rising health care spending and Part B trust fund financing…
Roughly one in four federal student-loan borrowers who owe a monthly payment have fallen behind, and the federal government is about to start collecting again. The U.S. Department of Education announced on April 21, 2025, that it will resume collections on defaulted federal student loans starting May 5, 2025, ending a years-long pause that shielded…
Workers who leave their jobs at age 55 or older hold a tax advantage that many overlook: they can pull money from that employer’s 401(k) without paying the 10% early-withdrawal penalty that normally applies before age 59 and a half. The provision, rooted in federal tax code at 26 U.S. Code Section 72(t)(2)(A)(v), applies specifically…
Medicare beneficiaries who rely on Ozempic, Rybelsus, or Wegovy will pay less for those drugs starting January 1, 2027, after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services completed its second round of price negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act. CMS projects $12 billion in aggregate net savings across the 15 drugs selected for this cycle,…
Homebuyers shopping for a fixed-rate loan this week face a 30-year mortgage rate averaging 6.52 percent, a drop from 6.84 percent recorded a year earlier, according to Freddie Mac data. The decline of roughly a third of a percentage point translates to lower monthly payments on new loans, but rates remain well above the sub-5-percent…
A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses Charter Communications of failing to protect personal data belonging to tens of millions of Spectrum customers. The complaint alleges that names, addresses, and account details were exposed in a breach that the company reported to California state regulators. Charter filed a breach notification sample with the California Department of Justice,…
Checking account holders at the largest U.S. banks are once again facing overdraft fees near $27 per transaction after Congress blocked a federal rule that would have capped those charges at $5. On May 12, 2025, the President signed a joint resolution disapproving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2024 overdraft final rule, stripping it of…
Self-employed workers, freelancers, and gig earners face a hard deadline on Monday, June 15, 2026, to submit their second-quarter estimated tax payments to the IRS. The payment covers federal income tax owed on earnings from April 1 through May 31. Missing this installment triggers penalties that accrue automatically, and the fact that June 15 falls…
Workers in professional services, manufacturing, and information technology are watching their industries shed jobs at a faster clip, but one sector keeps hiring through the turbulence. Health care accounted for the bulk of net employment gains as total nonfarm payrolls rose by 130,000 in January 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That split…