The financial news that actually matters
Covers tax deadlines, filing updates, government changes, and important financial calendar events. It ensures readers stay updated with time-sensitive financial requirements.
A borrower financing a new car, truck or SUV in 2025 or later can, for the first time in decades, deduct a portion of the interest paid on that loan from federal taxable income. The break runs through 2028 and caps at $10,000 a year. The catch sits in the fine print the IRS added…
A server, bartender, hairdresser or casino dealer filing a 2025 federal tax return can, for the first time, deduct a meaningful share of tip income before it is taxed. The break runs through 2028 and tops out at $25,000 a year, and it applies whether the return is itemized or not. For an older worker…
Starting Oct. 1, 2026, a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program household with a member age 60 or older, or a member living with a disability, will be allowed to hold more money in savings without losing eligibility for food benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Administration has finalized the annual cost-of-living adjustment that…
Roughly 20 million Medicaid enrollees across more than 40 states are approaching a coverage test that did not exist a year ago. Under a provision of the 2025 federal tax and spending law, most non-disabled adults ages 19 through 64 who qualify for Medicaid through the program’s expansion group must now show at least 80…
President Trump signed a short-term funding bill on September 2 that keeps federal agencies open through December 11, avoiding a shutdown that would otherwise have begun when the 2027 fiscal year opened on October 1. The law, H.R. 6500, does not settle federal spending for the year; it buys Congress roughly ten more weeks to…
A federal pilot program now lets Medicare enrollees who previously had no coverage for weight-loss injections buy certain GLP-1 medications for a flat $50 a month. The option, which opened July 1, 2026, has already been used by roughly 500,000 seniors who together saved $216 million in its first two months, according to the Trump…
A rule that used to stop at age 54 now follows a food-stamp recipient into the early 60s. Under the tax and spending law Congress passed in July 2025, adults ages 55 through 64 who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and do not have a child in the home must now document at least…
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, raised the federal cap on the state and local tax deduction from $10,000 to $40,000, a fourfold increase that applies retroactively to the 2025 tax year. For homeowners in high-tax states who itemize deductions, the change reopens a write-off that had been…
A claim that Social Security benefits are no longer taxed has circulated widely since the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in mid-2025. The law does deliver a real tax break to many people 65 and older, but it is narrower than the “no tax on Social Security” framing suggests. The benefits themselves…
Moving a parent or spouse into assisted living can easily cost several thousand dollars a month, and families often assume none of it is deductible because it looks more like housing than medical care. That is not always true. The IRS allows a meaningful portion of assisted-living costs to count as a deductible medical expense,…
Retirement Shield
Free retirement updates
Social Security and Medicare change every year, and nobody sends you a memo. The free Retirement Shield newsletter breaks down what changed and what to do.