Category: Taxes Made Simple
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The limit on repaying too much health insurance subsidy is gone for the tax year now underway
Every year, millions of people who buy health coverage through the ACA marketplace estimate their income months before they actually earn it, then find out at tax time whether the subsidy checks sent to their insurance company all year matched reality. Through 2025, if that estimate came in too low and the subsidy paid out…
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Treasury finalized the car loan interest deduction, and it only covers vehicles assembled in the United States
A driver who buys a Toyota Camry built in Georgetown, Kentucky can now count the loan interest toward a $10,000 federal tax deduction. A driver who buys the same Camry trim built in Aichi, Japan cannot — same price, same interest rate, same monthly payment. That is the line Treasury and the IRS drew on…
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The IRS put a verified tax compliance report inside the individual online account
The Internal Revenue Service has begun issuing a digitally authenticated Tax Compliance Report that taxpayers can download directly from their IRS Individual Online Account, ending the routine of mailing off for a transcript just to prove a clean filing history. The report tells a lender, a licensing board or a landlord whether someone filed on…
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The IRS will charge 7 percent on unpaid tax and pay 7 percent on a late refund in the quarter starting October 1
The Internal Revenue Service says the interest meter on unpaid taxes is staying exactly where it has been: 7 percent a year, compounded daily, through the final three months of 2026. The agency confirmed the fourth-quarter rates on August 21, and for anyone carrying a tax balance into the fall, or still waiting on a…
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Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom pay a lower American tariff than most economies because they ban forced-labor imports
Beginning July 24, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection started collecting a new tariff on imports from 60 economies, and the size of the bill turns on one thing: whether that economy bans the import of goods made with forced labor. Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom landed in the cheaper of two brackets, paying…
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The IRS laid out how to give another person legal authority over a parent’s federal tax matters
The IRS spent late August laying out, in plain terms, the different ways a taxpayer can hand someone else legal standing to deal with a federal tax matter. For a family helping an aging parent manage Social Security paperwork, income-linked Medicare premiums, or a stack of unopened IRS notices, the distinction between two commonly confused…
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The IRS is telling taxpayers to photograph their belongings now, because a disaster loss claim depends on records
The Internal Revenue Service opened National Preparedness Month with a specific instruction for taxpayers: photograph and video what a household owns before a wildfire, flood, or hurricane takes it. In a September 3 announcement, the agency said that recovering after a disaster, filing an insurance claim, and claiming a tax benefit for lost property all…
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Extension filers have until October 15, and the IRS says filing sooner cuts the interest and penalties that keep accruing
Millions of taxpayers who asked for extra time to file their 2025 federal return are working against a hard deadline: Oct. 15, 2026, a Thursday. The Internal Revenue Service says extension filers do not need to wait until that date arrives, encouraging early submission because interest and penalties on any unpaid tax keep accumulating the…
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Treasury proposes limiting the refunded part of four tax credits to citizens and qualified immigrants
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have proposed a new regulation that would limit who can receive the refunded portion of four federal tax credits, applying a citizenship and immigration status test that has not been enforced this way before. The rule targets the cash-back piece of the Adoption Tax Credit, the Child…
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Treasury would hold Trump Account money in index funds charging 0.1 percent at most
The federal government wants to put a hard ceiling on what Wall Street can charge to manage the retirement-style savings accounts it opened for millions of American children. Under a proposed regulation from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, money sitting in a child’s Trump Account could only go into a stock index…