The financial news that actually matters
Thousands of taxpayers who paid late-payment penalties on their 2020 or 2021 federal returns may be sitting on unclaimed refunds worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The catch: the window to claim that money closes on July 10, 2026, roughly 52 days from the date of this article’s publication. After that, any refund you…
The average American household is now paying roughly $1,500 more per year because of import tariffs imposed since early 2025, according to the Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania. That figure, drawn from the research group’s updated analysis published in February 2026, accounts for two federal court rulings that struck down portions of…
If you sold Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other digital asset through a brokerage in 2025, the IRS is set to know about it before you file your 2026 return. Starting with the 2025 tax year, crypto brokers must report gross proceeds from digital-asset sales on a new form, Form 1099-DA, handing the agency the same…
The Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s tariff authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February 2026. Within weeks, American importers began filing for refunds on duties they should never have owed. By June 2026, roughly 330,000 companies, according to court filings in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, had submitted claims to U.S….
Roughly 830,000 federal tax refunds are sitting in limbo this filing season, held by the IRS because the banking information on those returns was missing, wrong, or rejected by a financial institution. If yours is one of them, you probably already have a letter in hand: a CP53E notice telling you the agency approved your…
A federal gas-tax holiday sounds like relief. For the average American family, it would amount to about $35 over five months, roughly what it costs to fill half a tank. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, introduced the Gas Tax Suspension Act (S. 4485) during the 119th Congress. In May 2026, Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly…
Millions of Americans who paid late-payment penalties on their 2020 or 2021 federal tax returns may be owed money by the IRS, and the deadline to claim it is barely seven weeks away. In late 2023, the IRS announced it was waiving roughly $1 billion in failure-to-pay penalties that had accumulated during pandemic-era collection delays….
Tens of millions of Americans paid IRS penalties during the pandemic. A growing body of legal analysis suggests many of those charges were wrong, and the federal government may owe that money back. But the window to claim it is closing fast: most affected taxpayers must file a refund request by July 10, 2026, or…
A family buying a new refrigerator this spring will pay about $75 more than they would have two years ago, mostly because of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Multiply that kind of increase across vehicles, laptops, home wiring, canned goods and medical devices, and the cumulative hit reaches roughly $1,500 a year for the…
When the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, it triggered the largest customs refund in U.S. history: $166 billion flowing back to the companies that paid the duties. General Motors alone expects to collect roughly $500 million, a figure the automaker has referenced in public earnings commentary but…