Main Street Dollars

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Most tax scams borrow the name of something real. This one borrows the name of something that was never enacted at all. The Internal Revenue Service has issued a public warning about promoters selling what they call Tribal Tax Credits, telling taxpayers, tribal communities, businesses and tax professionals that no such federal credit exists and…

The IRS had no matching form for 15 million returns reporting retirement income

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in Rule Changes

A pension payment, an annuity or a withdrawal from an individual retirement account produces the same piece of paper twice. One copy of Form 1099-R goes to the retiree, usually in January. The other goes to the Internal Revenue Service, and it is not due there until the end of March. A federal watchdog has…

Paper individual returns took the IRS 30 days against its own 13-day standard

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in Refunds

The Internal Revenue Service keeps a written clock on tax returns that arrive in envelopes, and during the filing season that ended in April it ran more than twice as long as its own rulebook allows. Congressional auditors who examined the 2026 season found the agency averaged 30 days to process a paper individual income…

Utilities and data centers covering 263 million Americans pledged not to pass costs to households

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No federal rule requires the operator of a data center to pay for the power plant built to serve it. What exists instead is a signature page. The Ratepayer Protection Pledge, published by the White House, now carries commitments from organizations the page says cover 263 million Americans, three-quarters of the population, and roughly 80…

Michigan raised a gas utility’s low-income credit from $40 to $58

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A monthly credit that had sat at $40 for income-eligible DTE Gas Co. customers is now $58. The Michigan Public Service Commission set the higher figure deliberately, pegging it at approximately 70 percent of the utility’s proposed average monthly bill rather than picking a round number. For a household inside the program, the change is…

Xcel gas customers in Colorado pay $5.16 more a month from October 6

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Natural gas rates for Xcel Energy’s residential customers in Colorado rise 8.6 percent on October 6, which works out to $5.16 a month, or about $62 across twelve months. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission reached its final decision in the case on September 4, roughly six weeks before most Colorado furnaces begin running in earnest.…

Colorado cut the share of income a low-income household pays for power from 6 percent to 2.5 percent

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Colorado’s utility regulator still publishes a page explaining that its Percentage of Income Payment Plan holds an income-qualified household’s electric and gas bills to no more than 6 percent of that household’s income. For customers of the state’s largest utility, the number is now 2.5 percent. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission made that reduction on…

Colorado seniors qualify for a new $20 monthly credit on an electric bill

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A rate decision that adds roughly $5.00 a month to the average residential electric bill in Colorado also created a benefit running the other direction for older households. As part of its final decision in Xcel Energy’s electric rate case, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission ordered a dedicated discount program paying a $20 monthly bill…

Eggs rose 2.9 percent in August while lettuce fell 6.2 percent

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in Groceries & Gas

The grocery bill looked flat in August, at least on the receipt’s bottom line. But two of the most ordinary items in the cart moved in opposite directions and by a lot: eggs got noticeably more expensive while lettuce got noticeably cheaper, extending a slide that started the month before. The Bureau of Labor Statistics…

Ohio drivers paid 26 cents a gallon more in a single week

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