The financial news that actually matters
Covers retirement planning, Social Security benefits, pension systems, and long-term financial security. It helps readers understand how to prepare financially for retirement.
Retirees who are at least 70 and a half years old can now direct as much as $111,000 from a traditional IRA to a qualifying charity in a single year and owe zero federal income tax on the transfer. That ceiling, originally set at $100,000, has climbed because Congress required it to keep pace with…
Workers age 55 and older who stay on an employer high-deductible health plan can contribute an extra $1,000 per year to a health savings account, but the window to use that benefit slams shut the moment Medicare coverage begins. The catch-up amount is fixed by federal statute, not adjusted for inflation, and it applies every…
Single filers collecting Social Security face a tax hit that grows sharper each year, even if their actual benefits barely change. Once a single filer’s combined income crosses $34,000, up to 85% of that person’s Social Security check can be pulled into gross income for federal tax purposes. The threshold that triggers this tax was…
Retirees who hold Roth IRAs face no requirement to pull money out during their lifetimes, a statutory carve-out that lets account balances compound free of federal income tax for decades after other retirement accounts begin forcing annual taxable withdrawals. Under 26 U.S. Code Section 408A(c)(4), mandatory distribution rules simply do not apply before the account…
Taxpayers earning well above the Roth IRA contribution threshold can still move money into a Roth account, and the federal tax code explicitly allows it. The Internal Revenue Service confirms that conversions from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA carry no adjusted gross income restriction, a rule that has been in place since 2010…
Roughly 70 million Americans who rely on Social Security retirement checks face a sharper deadline than previously forecast. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, the program’s main source of benefit payments, is now projected to run dry in the fourth quarter of 2032, one year earlier than last year’s estimate. Once reserves hit zero,…
One corner of the booming annuity market has quietly gone into reverse. Sales of fixed-rate annuities, the plain-vanilla contracts that lock in a set interest rate for a few years, slipped in early 2026 after a long run of blockbuster demand. The pullback stands out precisely because the broader annuity business is still setting records,…
American workers are stashing away a larger slice of their paychecks for retirement than at any point on record, a rare piece of encouraging news in a stretch of stubborn prices and market whiplash. The combined amount that employees and their employers are steering into workplace retirement plans has climbed to a new high, according…
The money flowing into annuities reached a level the insurance industry had never recorded before. Across 2025, sales of these retirement-income contracts climbed to a fresh all-time high, extending a multi-year buying spree that has now run for the better part of a decade. The surge lines up with a demographic milestone that is reshaping…
A buyer scraping together a down payment in a housing market where median prices remain well above $400,000 can tap retirement savings for help, but the federal tax code caps that relief at just $10,000 per person. The penalty-free withdrawal for qualified first-time homebuyer distributions from an IRA has carried that same dollar limit since…