The financial news that actually matters
When the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, it set off the largest customs refund operation in U.S. history. The federal government is now returning roughly $166 billion to the companies that paid those duties at the border. But the American families who spent years absorbing higher prices…
If you owe $45,000 in federal student loans and were paying around $150 a month under the now-defunct SAVE repayment plan, your next bill could land closer to $500. That jump hits unless you actively choose a different repayment plan before your loan servicer’s deadline passes, and the clock is already running. Starting as early…
A family filling up a 15-gallon tank once a week for five straight months would save about $35 under President Trump’s proposed federal gas tax holiday. That comes to roughly $1.70 per trip to the pump, less than the price of a large coffee, and it assumes the savings actually reach consumers in full. Economists…
A U.S. wine importer recently recovered roughly $110,000 from Customs and Border Protection after a tariff reclassification changed the duty rate on bottles the company had already brought into the country. No publicly available Customs records document the specific transaction, the product classification involved, or whether the refund resulted from a formal exclusion petition or…
A parent who borrowed $40,000 in federal Parent PLUS loans to help a child finish college could be paying $593 a month on a standard repayment plan by this fall. That same parent, earning $55,000 a year, might pay closer to $200 a month under the only income-driven option ever available to Parent PLUS borrowers….
A new washing machine costs more this spring. So does a car, a laptop, and the copper wiring inside a house under construction. The reason traces back to a series of tariff actions that, taken together, now represent the largest effective tax increase on American households since President Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act…
If you paid IRS penalties on your 2020 or 2021 tax return, the federal government may owe you money, and you have until July 10, 2026, to stake your claim. That is roughly 57 days from mid-May 2026, and once the window closes, it likely closes for good. The IRS has already refunded or credited…
Fill up a mid-size sedan once a week for five months and skip the federal gas tax every time, and you would pocket roughly $35. That is the real-world value of President Trump’s proposal to suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax, based on consumption figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It works out to…
The checks are going out. After the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began processing refunds to the companies that originally paid the duties. More than 330,000 importers are now in line to recover a share of roughly $166 billion collected across more…
The clock is running out for parents who borrowed federal PLUS loans to pay for a child’s college education. On June 30, 2026, a consolidation window closes permanently, and any Parent PLUS borrower who has not acted by then will be locked out of every income-driven repayment plan the federal government offers. No extensions. No…