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
A Social Security “disability freeze” keeps low-earning years from dragging down your future retirement check
Social Security figures a retirement check from a worker’s highest-earning years, which means a stretch of little or no income can quietly shrink the benefit...
Taking a six-month retroactive Social Security lump sum permanently lowers every monthly check that follows
The Social Security Administration lets a worker who files after full retirement age collect up to six months of benefits in a single retroactive lump...
Humana is mailing roughly 600,000 Medicare Advantage members letters this September that their plan ends in 2027
About 600,000 Humana members are about to receive a letter that ends their Medicare Advantage plan, and the notices are landing in September rather than...
Medicare will start covering Wegovy and Zepbound for obesity, with many enrollees paying about $50 a month
For the first time, Medicare is paying for the blockbuster obesity drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, and the sticker shock that kept them out of reach...
Gifting an appreciated home to children can hand them a big capital-gains tax bill
A parent who signs the family home over to a child during life often believes it is the generous, tax-smart move. It can be the...
A living will and health proxy keep a family out of court if you can’t speak for yourself
A sudden stroke, a bad fall, or the slow arrival of dementia can leave an older person unable to say what care they want. When...
A brokerage account with a transfer-on-death registration skips probate for your investments
Stocks and mutual funds are among the assets most likely to get stuck in probate, and among the easiest to route around it. A brokerage...
Filing a beneficiary form on every account keeps money out of a slow, costly probate
A carefully drafted will can still send a family through months of probate court, but a one-page beneficiary form quietly sidesteps the whole process. Banks...
A free VITA program prepares taxes at no cost for lower-income and older filers
Paying a preparer to file a simple return can cost more than the refund is worth, and for many older and lower-income households that fee...
A prescription discount card can beat an insurance copay, but you can’t use both at once
At the pharmacy counter, the lowest sticker price on a prescription is not always the cheapest choice. A free discount card can price a common...
A Medicare general enrollment gap can leave you uncovered for months and paying a penalty
Turning 65 comes with a deadline that many people do not realize is a deadline. The window to sign up for Medicare Part B without...
Social Security benefits are not automatic, and applying too late can cost back pay
A common assumption trips up new retirees: that Social Security simply starts on its own once a person reaches a certain age. It does not....
Medicare now covers therapy and mental-health visits, including with some counselors
For years, older Americans seeking counseling ran into a practical wall: many of the therapists in their communities could not bill Medicare, which left beneficiaries...
Medicare covers a continuous glucose monitor and diabetes supplies for many enrollees
Managing diabetes carries a steady stream of costs — test strips, lancets, and the monitors that read blood sugar — and for a retiree on...
Moving out of a plan’s service area can open a guaranteed right to buy Medigap
A retiree who relocates and discovers that a Medicare Advantage plan no longer serves the new address faces a quiet but consequential opening. That move...
Retirees can dodge an underpayment penalty by using a quarterly \”safe harbor\”
An underpayment penalty is one of the easier tax charges to trigger in retirement, because income can jump in a year without any employer automatically...
The IRS often waives a first-time penalty if you simply ask
A penalty notice from the IRS can land in a retiree’s mailbox for a single late return or a payment that slipped past the deadline,...
A defaulted federal debt can cost you a chunk of a tax refund through the Treasury Offset Program
A tax refund can vanish before it ever arrives. Through a federal collection system called the Treasury Offset Program, the government can intercept a refund...
A Roth’s five-year clock must pass before earnings come out completely tax-free
The great promise of a Roth IRA is tax-free income in retirement, but that promise comes with a timing rule that catches savers off guard,...
Millions of paper tax refunds are running weeks late as the IRS phases out mailed checks
More than 14 million tax returns were flagged for manual review this filing season, and over a million taxpayers waited about five and a half...