The financial news that actually matters
Somewhere in Texas right now, a home health aide earning $26,000 a year is eligible for a federal tax credit that could put more than $2,500 back in her pocket. She will probably never claim it. Texas has one of the lowest Earned Income Tax Credit participation rates in the country, and nationally, roughly one…
A married couple in Austin sells the house they bought in 2018 for $350,000. The closing price in 2026: $825,000. Their gain on paper is $475,000, and under federal tax law, every dollar of it can be excluded from income tax. A single neighbor with the same numbers would owe federal tax on $225,000 of…
If you owe $40,000 in federal student loans and earn $35,000 a year, the SAVE repayment plan may have kept your monthly bill at $0. That number could jump to roughly $430 a month by fall if you don’t act before a hard federal deadline now just over a month away. On July 1, 2026,…
Millions of Americans swipe a debit or credit card at a shared laundry machine every week without thinking twice about where that data goes. Last summer, they got an uncomfortable answer. CSC ServiceWorks, the company behind roughly one million networked washers and dryers in apartment buildings, college dorms, and laundromats across all 50 states and…
Most Americans never choose what their 401(k) money is invested in. They get auto-enrolled, a target-date fund is selected for them, and their paycheck contributions flow into a mix of stocks and bonds they may never examine. That passive arrangement now sits at the center of a high-stakes federal rulemaking: the Labor Department has proposed…
About 5 million federal student loan borrowers are in default right now. If you are one of them, your paycheck just caught a break. Your tax refund did not. The U.S. Department of Education confirmed this spring that it has paused Administrative Wage Garnishment (AWG), the mechanism that allows the government to divert up to…
The federal government is about to permanently shut Parent PLUS borrowers out of every income-driven repayment plan. After June 30, 2026, parents who hold PLUS loans will have no path to monthly payments based on what they earn, no route to balance forgiveness after 25 years, and no workaround through consolidation. The One Big Beautiful…
Turn 65, and your health savings account quietly transforms. Federal law drops the 20 percent penalty that normally applies when you pull HSA money for nonmedical spending. After that birthday, a withdrawal for groceries, a vacation, or a new roof is taxed exactly the same way as a traditional IRA distribution: ordinary income tax, nothing…
Say you borrow $20,000 from your 401(k) to cover a roof replacement. The paperwork takes a day, nobody pulls your credit, and the interest you pay goes right back into your own account. Eighteen months later, you get a better job offer and give notice. The plan administrator sends a letter: repay the remaining $14,000…
Roughly 27 million Americans file federal tax returns reporting self-employment income each year, and a significant share of them owe the IRS a payment on June 15, 2026. That is the deadline for second-quarter estimated taxes, and for freelancers, rideshare drivers, and independent contractors who come up short, the penalty is steep: an annualized rate…