Congress created a federal seed deposit for a defined set of newborns, then put control of it entirely in a parent’s hands. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has been depositing $1,000 into new investment accounts for eligible children since early July, but only for families that have actually filed the paperwork behind it. Millions…

Servers, bartenders, delivery drivers and hourly employees planning to claim one of two new deductions on a 2025 tax return are running into an unfamiliar problem: the dollar figure the deduction depends on will not be sitting in a labeled box on this year’s Form W-2. The qualified tips deduction and the qualified overtime deduction,…

The Internal Revenue Service has drawn a bright line between two of the most common ways households finance a car, and it works against nearly half of them. A new deduction for interest paid on vehicle loans, created by the 2025 tax law commonly called the Working Families Tax Cuts, excludes lease payments entirely from…

A new federal deduction lets tipped workers write off as much as $25,000 in tip income starting with the 2025 tax year, part of a package of individual tax breaks Congress passed last year. The deduction phases out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income for single filers and $300,000 for joint filers, according to…

A pay stub showing $9,000 in overtime for the year does not turn into a $9,000 deduction under the overtime tax break built into the 2025 federal tax law. The Internal Revenue Service says only the portion of overtime pay that exceeds a worker’s regular hourly rate — the “half” inside “time and a half”…

A new tax break lets car buyers deduct up to $10,000 a year in loan interest, but the Treasury Department’s final rules make one thing unmistakable: the write-off is not open to every vehicle on a dealer’s lot. Anyone who financed a truck, SUV or sedan built outside the United States will find the deduction…

A car loan can now shrink a tax bill, but only if the vehicle underneath it rolled off a factory line inside the United States. The “no tax on car loan interest” provision, part of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, lets eligible buyers deduct up to $10,000 a year in loan interest on a personal-use…

A server, bartender or valet can now deduct a good chunk of tips from federal taxable income, but the tax break only reaches workers in jobs the IRS has formally recognized as tip-based. The rule, part of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill’s “No Tax on Tips” provision, runs through 2028 and lets eligible workers deduct…

The federal Adoption Credit has existed for decades as a nonrefundable break, which meant a family with too little tax owed could lose part of it outright. That changed for adoptions finalized in 2025 and afterward: a portion of the credit, up to $5,000 per child, now pays out even to households that owe little…

A tax break aimed at helping families cover private and religious school costs is set to take effect at the start of 2027, but it will not be available everywhere. The Internal Revenue Service has confirmed that individual taxpayers will be able to claim a federal credit worth up to $1,700 for cash donations to…