Author: Brian Lund
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Cash App users are getting refund checks under a $75 million CFPB order
Some Cash App users are opening their mailboxes this year to find a paper check they never asked for, sent by a company most of them have never heard of. The checks trace back to a January 2025 order from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against Block, Inc., the parent company of Cash App, over…
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Treasury says a single $1,000 deposit at birth could be worth about half a million dollars by retirement age
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood before a room of lawmakers in late January and made a claim that sounds almost too good to check: a single $1,000 government deposit, left untouched for decades, could grow into roughly half a million dollars by the time a child retires. The number is attached to Trump Accounts, the…
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Former AT&T customers who never cashed a 2024 refund check are getting the money by Zelle instead
The Federal Trade Commission has reopened a refund case that most people assumed was closed two years ago. Former AT&T customers who were mailed a check or offered a PayPal payment in 2024 and never completed either one are now getting that money delivered by Zelle instead. The switch is clearing out a pocket of…
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A failed credit union typically repays members within three days of closing.
No credit union member has ever lost a penny of federally insured savings, but a credit union failure still upends daily banking for a few days while the money moves. The National Credit Union Administration says insured funds are typically back in members’ hands within about three days of a credit union closing its doors,…
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The CFPB is drafting a rule that would let banks charge for sending your data to apps.
Millions of people connect a bank account to a budgeting app, a bill-negotiation service, or an automated investing tool without ever paying a separate charge for the privilege. That arrangement may not last. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working on a new rule that would let banks and credit unions charge outside apps for…
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Borrowers with older loans have until July 1, 2028 to pick among three surviving repayment plans.
July 1, 2028 sounds distant, but it is the real deadline the Department of Education has set for a group of federal student loan borrowers who are easy to overlook: people whose loans predate this summer’s repayment overhaul. Borrowers with loans made before July 1, 2026, who are still sitting in one of the phased-out…
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The Education Department has closed loan-forgiveness buyback to anyone entering the two newest repayment plans.
A teacher who spent two years in an ineligible forbearance while the SAVE Plan worked its way through federal court assumed she could eventually buy back that time toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness. New Department of Education guidance says she can no longer count on that if she enrolls in either of the two newest…
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The overtime deduction doubles to $25,000 for a couple filing jointly, phasing out above $300,000.
A married couple who both work overtime shifts — one at a hospital, the other at a warehouse — face a filing decision that a single overtime earner never has to think about: whether filing separately could ever make sense once this deduction is on the table. For this particular tax break, the law already…
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A tipped worker’s occupation code sits in box 14b, beside the tip total in box 12.
The Form W-2 that tipped workers receive for the 2026 tax year looks different from every version that came before it. Where box 14 used to be a single catch-all for miscellaneous items an employer wanted to note, it now splits into two: box 14a for the old leftover items, and a brand-new box 14b…
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Workers who think overtime is missing from a W-2 are told to ask for a corrected form, not to redo the math.
Late in tax season, a familiar complaint starts showing up in payroll and tax-prep offices alike: an employee’s last pay stub of the year shows thousands of dollars in overtime pay, but the new box on the Form W-2 meant to report it for the tax deduction comes back at zero, or far lower than…
