Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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Disaster filers in Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia and Mississippi have until February 1, and the IRS applies it by address
Four states now share the same tax deadline for reasons that have nothing to do with each other. Storms in Indiana, a wildfire in Nebraska, flooding in West Virginia and a tropical storm in Mississippi each triggered a separate IRS disaster declaration this summer, and every one of them lands on the identical date: February…
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Social Security starts matching federal pension records against 111 million Medicare files this month to test Extra Help claims
A data-sharing arrangement that quietly decides who keeps a valuable Medicare subsidy, and who loses it, is about to restart. Starting September 16, 2026, the Social Security Administration will compare civil service pension records from the Office of Personnel Management against its own Medicare files to check who is correctly receiving Extra Help with prescription…
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Toledo’s median rent is $916, against $3,844 in San Francisco
A one-bedroom renter moving from Toledo, Ohio to San Francisco would need to more than quadruple their housing budget just to keep a similar-sized apartment. Toledo’s overall median rent sits at $916 a month as of August 2026, the lowest of the 100 largest U.S. cities tracked by Apartment List. San Francisco’s median rent is…
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The IRS says anyone who has not filed in more than six years may be locked out of its free Direct Pay tool
The IRS used a routine payment reminder this week to flag a detail that catches more taxpayers than the agency probably intends: its free Direct Pay tool will not work for everyone who tries it. Anyone who has gone more than six years without filing a federal return, or who has simply never filed one,…
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A federal 50 percent match on retirement savings starts with 2027 contributions and pays out in 2028
A retirement-savings benefit Congress approved years ago, and that nobody has been able to claim yet, is finally getting its plumbing built. The Treasury Department and the IRS issued guidance in August confirming that the Saver’s Match, a program enacted under the SECURE 2.0 Act, will begin with contributions made in 2027 and will not…
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Medicare’s GLP-1 bridge covers Wegovy and Zepbound at one monthly price no matter what a household earns
Starting July 1, 2026, Medicare began covering three specific weight-loss and metabolic drugs through a new program called Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, priced at a single flat monthly amount no matter what a beneficiary earns. It is not a blanket expansion of GLP-1 coverage to every Medicare enrollee who wants a prescription — it is a…
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Clean vehicle tax credits died for any car acquired after September 30, 2025
Three federal tax credits that helped bring down the price of an electric or hybrid vehicle are no longer available to most buyers, and the change is not a proposal working its way through Congress — it is settled law that has already taken effect. The New Clean Vehicle Credit, the Used Clean Vehicle Credit,…
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Social Security’s overpayment rules reach a survivor’s lump-sum death payment and the deceased person’s estate
When a Social Security beneficiary dies while still owing the agency money from an earlier overpayment, that debt does not disappear along with them. The Social Security Administration follows a specific, ranked sequence for trying to recover the balance, and the sequence can reach a surviving spouse’s one-time death payment, reduce another family member’s own…
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Marketplace enrollment is down by 3 million people after premium payments jumped this year
Nearly three million fewer people were enrolled in an Affordable Care Act marketplace plan in early 2026 than a year earlier, and the households that kept their coverage watched their monthly premium bill climb sharply at the same time. The two trends line up on the calendar: enhanced federal premium tax credits that had capped…
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The 10 percent global import surcharge expired July 24 and was replaced by tariffs on 60 economies
A tariff that touched nearly every imported product sold in the United States quietly expired this summer, and it did not go away so much as get replaced by something more targeted. The change matters for anyone assuming the extra 10 percent tacked onto import costs since February is still showing up in store prices…
