The financial news that actually matters
A notice from the Internal Revenue Service demanding several years of unpaid taxes can be one of the most frightening pieces of mail a retiree receives, especially for someone living on a fixed Social Security check who fears a bank levy or garnished income. What many older filers do not realize is that the tax…
A change written into the 2022 retirement law finally reaches paychecks in 2026, and it lands hardest on the workers who save the most. Under the rule, employees age 50 and older who earned above a set wage threshold can no longer take their extra “catch-up” retirement contributions as pre-tax dollars. Those catch-up amounts now…
A surviving spouse does not have to wait until full retirement age to draw anything from a late husband’s or wife’s Social Security record. The Social Security Administration allows a widow or widower to begin a survivor benefit as early as age 60, often six or seven years before that survivor’s own retirement benefit would…
Couples who map out Social Security often build their plan around a single move: have the lower-earning spouse collect a spousal benefit early while the higher earner lets their own check grow. The strategy runs into a wall that surprises many of them. A spousal benefit is paid on the worker’s record, and Social Security…
Retirees who spent decades building savings across several accounts run into a rule at age 73 that trips up even careful planners: the required minimum distribution, the amount the government forces out of tax-deferred accounts each year. The catch is not the calculation so much as the choreography. Individual retirement accounts can be pooled and…
Downsizing in retirement is supposed to cut costs, but a smaller house can arrive with a larger property-tax bill if the move resets the home’s assessed value. A handful of states blunt that risk by letting older owners carry a low tax base from the old home to the new one. Where the rules exist,…
A homeowners policy that lapses does not leave a mortgaged house unprotected for long. The lender steps in, buys a policy of its own, and passes the premium straight to the borrower — usually at a price well above what the owner had been paying, and often covering far less. For retirees managing a fixed…
A house with no mortgage is supposed to be the safest asset a retiree owns. It is also, increasingly, a target. Criminals have learned that a paid-off home carries no lender watching over its title, and they exploit that blind spot by forging a deed, recording a phony transfer of ownership, and treating the property…
Heating and cooling costs are among the least flexible expenses in a fixed-income household, and for many older adults they arrive as a bill that has to be paid before almost anything else. A federal program exists specifically to blunt that pressure, covering part of an energy bill and stepping in when a shutoff looms….
For retirees facing a lawsuit, a stack of medical bills, or the prospect of bankruptcy, the money inside a 401(k) or individual retirement account is often the single largest asset they own and the one they most fear losing. Federal law treats those accounts very differently from an ordinary checking or savings account, and in…