Retirement & Taxes
Long-term financial planning, retirement accounts, government benefits, tax law, and IRS rules. Covers the intersection of policy and personal finance that affects how people save, invest, and plan ahead.
Latest in Retirement & Taxes
IRS Free File closes October 15 with an $89,000 income cap on guided software
Free File, the IRS program that lets filers prepare and e-file a federal return at no cost, shuts for 2025 returns on Thursday, October 15,...
Prosecutors say a Tucson man kept $104,013 in Social Security payments sent to his late mother’s account
A federal grand jury in Tucson has indicted Ruffin Alford III, 48, on a charge that he kept $104,013 in Social Security benefits deposited into...
A Reno woman faces a December 1 federal trial over at least $15,000 of her late uncle’s Social Security deposits
A Reno woman is scheduled to stand trial in federal court on December 1 on a charge that she took Social Security retirement money meant...
Social Security wants to merge two disability forms, with comments due November 23
Social Security wants to replace two forms that people fill out at the disability hearing stage with one. The revised Form HA-4631, Claimant’s Recent Medical...
Proposed IRS rules would let a seller of qualified farmland spread the tax over four years
Treasury and the IRS have proposed rules that would let someone who sells qualified farmland spread the tax on the gain over four years instead...
The IRS page promising Mississippi storm victims a February 1 deadline carries an August correction limiting its quarterly payroll relief to the July 31 and November 2 deadlines
A note added to the top of the Internal Revenue Service’s Mississippi storm-relief notice on August 21 says the February 1, 2027 extension in one...
Taxpayers in six Washington counties burned in July are not bound by October 15: the IRS moved their extended returns and estimated payments to February 1
For most Americans with a six-month extension on their 2025 income tax return, October 15 is the last day to file. In six Washington counties,...
Washington says its SNAP recipients only face the three-months-in-36 time limit after a screening at their next eligibility review, not on a fixed date
Washington has set no cutoff date for the federal rule that limits some SNAP recipients to three months of benefits in any 36. The state’s...
SNAP households in 14 Florida Panhandle and Big Bend counties have until October 19 to ask the state to replace food lost to Hurricane Isaias
A Florida household on SNAP that lost food to Hurricane Isaias can ask the state to replace it, but only if the home is in...
SNAP households in Hawaii County, Maui County and one Oahu ZIP code have until October 15 to report food destroyed by Hurricane Nolo and get up to a month’s benefits back
Power outages tied to Hurricane Nolo began across parts of Hawaii on September 25, and a wildfire on Maui the next day made matters worse....
USDA’s SNAP food-restriction waivers each run two years, so the drink and candy bans five states target for November 1 would hold into 2028
Every SNAP food-restriction waiver USDA has approved for soda and candy limits runs for two years, so the five states set to start at the...
Anyone the VA recognizes to help veterans and caregivers through its programs must certify they will charge no fee, and comments on the plan close October 15
A written promise that no fee of any kind will be charged, and an October 15 deadline for public comment, are the two things to...
Veterans whose benefit payment is disrupted by a disaster can ask VA for a special one-time payment, and ask a VA loan servicer to hold off foreclosing for 90 days
The Department of Veterans Affairs says a veteran whose benefit payment is stopped by a natural disaster can call and request a special one-time payment....
VCU Health goes out of network with Anthem’s Medicare Advantage HMO-POS, PPO and chronic-condition plans on January 1, while Anthem’s dual special needs plan stays in
VCU Health goes out of network with three kinds of Anthem Medicare Advantage plan on January 1, 2027: the HMO-POS, the PPO and the chronic-condition...
Medicare will not give members a new special enrollment period when their hospital leaves the plan network, after regulators dropped that proposal from the 2027 final rule
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services decided against creating a new special enrollment period for Medicare Advantage members whose doctor or hospital leaves their...
CHRISTUS Medicare Advantage members who go back to Original Medicare have until March 4, 2027 to buy a Medigap policy with no health questions, the plan tells them
CHRISTUS Health Plan is ending three Medicare Advantage plans on December 31, 2026, and members who respond by going back to Original Medicare have a...
Northeast Grocery and Tops 401(k) savers would be paid automatically under the plans’ fee settlement if the court approves it, and November 17 is only the deadline to object
Participants in the 401(k) plans of Northeast Grocery, the parent company of Tops Markets and Price Chopper, would not have to file anything to be...
Over 11,000 Social Security beneficiaries asked the agency to explain an overpayment, and its watchdog found 79 of 125 sampled requests were handled incorrectly
Social Security’s own inspector general found that the agency mishandled 79 of 125 sampled requests from beneficiaries who asked it to explain an overpayment. The...
About 22% of stand-alone Medicare drug plan members are in four-star contracts for 2027, up from 2%
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) says about 22% of people in stand-alone Medicare drug plans will be in contracts rated four stars...
Under proposed IRS rules, the new federal scholarship tax credit tops out at $1,700 per person, cannot exceed tax owed and subtracts any state credit first, with comments due December 1
The new federal scholarship tax credit would cut a taxpayer’s federal tax bill by at most $1,700 a year for cash gifts to a scholarship...