Daniel Harper
Daniel is a finance writer covering personal finance topics including budgeting, credit, and beginner investing. He began his career contributing to his Substack, where he covered consumer finance trends and practical money topics for everyday readers. Since then, he has written for a range of personal finance blogs and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, straightforward content that helps readers make more informed financial decisions.
Latest Articles by Daniel Harper
A surviving spouse can face higher tax rates as a single filer, the \”widow’s penalty\”
The loss of a spouse carries a tax consequence that catches many survivors off guard, and it arrives after the grief, not during it. Once...
A surviving spouse can roll a late partner’s IRA into their own and delay withdrawals
Inheriting a retirement account triggers very different rules depending on who does the inheriting, and a surviving spouse holds the most valuable position in that...
A married couple can now shield up to $30 million from federal estate tax
The federal estate and gift tax exemption has risen to $15 million per person for 2026, which means a married couple can pass roughly $30...
A working spouse can fund a full IRA for a partner who has no earned income
A common assumption sidelines a whole category of retirement saving: that a person needs a paycheck to fund an individual retirement account. For married couples,...
Leave a job at 55 or later and you can tap that 401(k) without the early-withdrawal penalty
Turning 55 while still attached to a job opens a narrow but valuable escape from one of retirement saving’s harshest rules. Ordinarily, money pulled from...
After 65, health-savings-account money can be spent on anything with no penalty
A health savings account changes character the year its owner turns 65, and the shift is one of the more generous quirks in the federal...
Pulling retirement income from a Roth can keep more of your Social Security check untaxed
Which account a retiree taps for spending money can quietly decide how much of a Social Security check the IRS gets to tax. The reason...
Some retirees pay zero federal tax on long-term investment gains when their income stays low enough
The federal tax code contains a bracket that many older investors never notice: a zero percent rate on long-term capital gains for taxpayers whose taxable...
About $100 billion in struck-down tariffs is being refunded to businesses, but little is reaching shoppers
After the Supreme Court struck down many of the tariffs imposed over the past year, roughly $100 billion of the money collected is now flowing...
A new federal program will match up to $1,000 a year for workers who save without a job plan
Starting in 2027, the federal government will begin depositing money directly into the retirement accounts of lower- and moderate-income workers who set some cash aside...
More than 4 million people have already lost some or all of their food stamps under the new law
More than 4 million people have already lost some or all of their food stamps since last July, as new rules from the One Big...
A new deduction lets car buyers write off up to $10,000 of auto-loan interest through 2028
Car buyers can now write off up to $10,000 a year in auto-loan interest under a new federal deduction created by the One Big Beautiful...
Federal student-loan collections have restarted, and defaults now top 9 million, putting paychecks and benefits at risk
Federal student-loan collections have restarted, and the number of borrowers in default now tops 9 million — roughly 9.5 to 9.6 million as of March...
Prescription drug prices have fallen every month of 2026, the sharpest drop the White House claims since the 1960s
The White House says prescription drug prices have fallen about 3.9% since President Trump took office and have declined in every month of 2026, a...
A Roth IRA never forces withdrawals, letting the money grow tax-free for heirs
Every other retirement account eventually forces the owner’s hand. Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s carry required minimum distributions — annual withdrawals the government demands starting at...
A durable power of attorney lets someone manage your money if you can’t
Illness, a stroke, or the slow arithmetic of dementia can take away a person’s ability to manage money long before it takes anything else. When...
