Category: Taxes Made Simple
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Employers must break out overtime pay on the W-2 for the first time this year
A new line is coming to millions of pay stubs and W-2 forms, and it has nothing to do with a raise. Employers and other payers must now separately spell out how much of a worker’s pay was overtime compensation, a change tied to the federal tax deduction for overtime that took effect with the…
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Part of the adoption credit now comes back as cash, up to $5,000
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…
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A $1,700 federal credit for school donations starts January 1, and only some states signed up
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…
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A new law gives disaster victims more time to claim an old refund
A technical fix buried in last year’s tax legislation is now deciding whether thousands of Indiana households can actually collect refunds the Internal Revenue Service already owes them. For years, disaster survivors who followed the agency’s own instructions sometimes learned only later that a refund they were entitled to had technically expired before they ever…
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Anyone with a bank account can pay a federal tax bill free and without registering
A tax bill sent by the federal government does not require a login, a new account, or a fee just to hand the money over. The Internal Revenue Service runs a free tool called Direct Pay that moves funds straight out of a checking or savings account, using only the numbers already sitting on a…
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The IRS wants extension filers to file now rather than wait for October 15
Households that asked for extra time to finish a 2025 tax return are being told, again, not to wait for the fall deadline. The Internal Revenue Service used a reminder issued in late August to push extension filers toward finishing early, and the message carries a real cost if it is ignored: the extension bought…
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Treasury proposed making filers swear to citizenship before the refundable part of four credits is paid
A proposed regulation from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service would require tax filers to certify their citizenship or immigration status before the refunded part of four common tax credits could be paid out. The rule, opened for public comment in August, targets only the slice of a credit that exceeds what a…
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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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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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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,…