Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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The IRS proposed blocking people in the country illegally from the refundable part of the child tax credit
Treasury and the IRS have proposed a new rule that would change who can collect the extra, refunded portion of four popular tax credits. The proposal targets people living in the country illegally, but the mechanics of how it would work, and what it would leave untouched, matter for millions of mixed-status and immigrant households…
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Walmart says $2.9 billion in tariff refunds funded more than 11,000 price rollbacks
Walmart’s most recent quarterly earnings release places two numbers side by side. The retailer says it received nearly $2.9 billion in tariff refunds during its second fiscal quarter of 2027, the three months ending in early August, and that its U.S. stores delivered more than 11,000 price rollbacks over that same stretch. Walmart presents the…
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Every NewYork-Presbyterian hospital leaves UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage network October 1, though patients in treatment keep coverage into December
New Yorkers covered by a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan have spent much of 2026 watching a contract fight between their insurer and one of the region’s largest hospital systems play out one deadline at a time. The latest extension pushes the cutoff to September 30, with a new one taking its place on October 1…
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A lender’s breach exposed Social Security numbers and bank account numbers for 734,828 borrowers
Heights Finance Holdings Co., a South Carolina-based consumer lender that operates installment-loan branches under brands including Heights Finance, Southern Finance, Covington Credit and Quick Credit across roughly a dozen states, disclosed this month that hackers broke into a third-party cloud platform holding customer records. The exposed data includes Social Security numbers, tax identification numbers, driver’s…
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Americans reported losing about $16 billion to fraud last year, and $3.5 billion of that went to imposters
The Federal Trade Commission’s latest tally of what Americans said they lost to fraud in 2025 lands at roughly $16 billion, the highest calendar-year figure the agency has published. Of that total, $3.5 billion traces to imposter scams — schemes where someone pretends to be a bank, a government agency, or a familiar company —…
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A boiler room sold $74 million in pre-IPO shares to more than 800 investors, many of them retirees
More than 800 people, many of them retirees, thought they had found a way into some of the most sought-after private companies in the country before Wall Street ever got the chance to buy in. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that what they actually got were shares marked up by tens of millions of…
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Social Security’s watchdog says no company can transfer your call to the agency
A caller who says they represent a familiar retailer or bank flags a purchase the customer does not recognize, then offers to connect the call to Social Security or its watchdog to straighten things out. According to the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, that single moment — the “transfer” — is the…
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Kroger will pay $75,000 to a cashier it turned away over nerve damage
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says a national grocery chain will pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit accusing it of shutting out a cashier who asked for a place to sit. The worker, a breast cancer survivor whose treatment left her with permanent nerve damage in her legs, asked only for a stool during…
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The government just erased 178,000 private-sector jobs from its count through March
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ running count of private-sector jobs through March 2026 was too high by 178,000, the agency disclosed on August 28, 2026, in a preliminary revision to its Current Employment Statistics program. Total nonfarm employment for that same month, once government hiring is folded back in, was overstated by 79,000. The gap…
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Starting in 2027, the IRS will match half of what a low-income worker saves, up to $1,000
The Treasury Department and the IRS confirmed this month that a new federal program, the Saver’s Match, will begin adding federal money to the retirement accounts of low- and moderate-income workers — but not until contributions made in 2027, and not paid out until 2028. The match replaces a decades-old tax credit that worked very…
