Category: Taxes Made Simple
-
People 65 and older can claim a new $6,000 bonus tax deduction on returns through 2028
Taxpayers who are 65 or older can claim a new $6,000 bonus deduction on their federal returns, a break created by the 2025 tax law that runs through 2028. It is not a check and not a credit — it lowers the income the IRS taxes, which can trim a retiree’s tax bill or even…
-
Workers can now deduct up to $12,500 in overtime pay, and it will show up on your W-2
Starting with the 2026 tax year, workers who put in overtime can deduct a big slice of that extra pay when they file, and for the first time the amount will be printed right on their W-2. The deduction is worth up to $12,500 for a single filer and $25,000 for a married couple filing…
-
A stalled House bill would send married couples $1,700 from tariff money
Nothing has happened to H.R. 9768 since the afternoon it was filed. The official record shows three actions, all stamped July 16, 2026: introduced in the House, introduced in the House again as the clerk logs it, and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. No hearing, no markup, no vote, and no cosponsors…
-
Your $800 duty-free limit on imported packages is gone for good, a trade court ruled August 13
A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade spent thirty pages on a single question this month: whether a president who cannot impose tariffs under emergency powers can nonetheless switch off the rule that let packages worth $800 or less enter the country duty free. On August 13, 2026, the panel answered yes…
-
The extra Obamacare subsidies expired, and the 2027 out-of-pocket ceiling rises to $12,000
A pair of temporary clauses stopped applying on the last day of 2025, and Congress has not written anything to take their place. The live text of the statute still carries both of them, still labeled as running only through 2025, with no later amendment attached. What replaced them is the original 2010 subsidy structure,…
-
No bill to untax Social Security has moved since 2025, and what seniors got instead is a $6,000 deduction
The federal income tax on Social Security benefits has not been repealed, reduced, or scheduled for a vote. Three separate bills in the current Congress would end it outright, and all three are sitting exactly where they were filed, in the committees that received them, with no recorded action since 2025. What did become law…
-
$166 billion in tariffs is being refunded with interest, and the checks go to importers, not shoppers
On April 30, 2026, the federal government’s customs-duty receipts for the fiscal year stood at $188.6 billion. Three months later the same line in the Treasury’s books read $154.5 billion. That roughly $34 billion swing is not a collapse in imports or a bookkeeping quirk. It is a refund program running in reverse through the…
-
A new IRS report shows a lender or employer that you filed and paid on time
A single PDF, downloadable at any hour from an IRS Individual Online Account, now exists for the sole purpose of being handed to somebody else. The Tax Compliance Report states whether a taxpayer filed returns and paid taxes on time, and it is built to be shared when a lender, an employer or a benefits…
-
Unpaid tax still costs 7 percent, compounded daily, through the end of the year
Interest on an unpaid federal tax balance is not a fixed annual charge that sits still. The Internal Revenue Code re-derives it every three months from a market benchmark, and whatever comes out of that formula then compounds daily against the balance until the balance is gone. For the quarter that begins Oct. 1, the…
-
Working parents can now shield $7,500 of child care costs from federal tax through a workplace account, up from $5,000
For the 2025 tax year, the most a worker could run through an employer’s dependent care account and keep out of taxable income was $5,000. For tax years beginning after December 31, 2025, that ceiling is $7,500. The difference is $2,500 of child care spending that moves from after-tax dollars to pre-tax dollars, and it…