Category: Taxes Made Simple
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A working family with three children can claim up to $8,231 from the earned income credit for 2026
Working families with children stand to gain thousands of dollars from a single line buried inside a routine IRS inflation announcement, and most of them will not see it mentioned anywhere until they sit down to file. For tax year 2026, the maximum Earned Income Tax Credit for a family with three or more qualifying…
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The IRS posts refund status 24 hours after an e-filed return and four weeks after a paper one
Every filing season, the same question drives more traffic to IRS.gov than almost any other: where is my refund? The IRS answered it again this week in a routine reminder about its online tools, and buried in that reminder is a specific, checkable timeline for when a refund actually shows up as trackable in the…
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Employer health coverage counts as affordable in 2027 even if it eats 10.22 percent of a worker’s income
The IRS has quietly reset one of the most consequential numbers in the Affordable Care Act, and most workers will never see it printed on a pay stub or a benefits enrollment packet. Starting with health plans that begin in 2027, an employer can require a worker to spend up to 10.22 percent of household…
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The IRS now issues a tax compliance report lenders and employers can verify
Proving to a landlord, lender, or employer that you’re current on your taxes has usually meant handing over a tax transcript or a copy of a return and hoping the person on the other end knows how to read it. The IRS has now built a purpose-made document for exactly that situation, one that carries…
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The IRS keeps its free guided tax software open until October 15 for incomes up to $89,000
Taxpayers who asked for more time to file their 2025 return still have a hard deadline ahead of them, and the IRS is using its late-August reminder to push people toward filing now instead of waiting until the last week. Free, guided software remains open for a large share of extension filers, but the income…
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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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The IRS proposed letting employers put $2,500 a year into a worker’s Trump Account tax-free
An employer that wants to help a worker save for a child’s future could soon have a straightforward, tax-free way to do it — at least on paper. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service floated proposed regulations on Aug. 11, 2026, spelling out how a company could contribute up to $2,500 a year…
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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…
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The IRS says overtime pay is still fully withheld, and the new deduction shows up only at filing
Overtime pay is not getting any bigger on payday under the federal tax law that created a new deduction for it. The Internal Revenue Service made that explicit on August 6, 2026, when it published a substantially rewritten set of frequently asked questions on the deduction for qualified overtime compensation, replacing guidance the agency had…
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The IRS again says the proposed $2,000 tariff-dividend check has not been approved by Congress
A rumor keeps circulating that Americans are about to receive a $2,000 tariff-dividend check, and the reality is worth stating plainly: no such payment has been approved. The idea remains a proposal, not a law, and the IRS has warned that scammers are already using the buzz to trick people. This is a story about…