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Tips for navigating a changing tax landscape
What’s new this tax season? In a word: Obamacare. That’s the answer given by many tax professionals. People who overcame the challenges of HealthCare.gov and bought health insurance under the Affordable Care Act last year face a new set of hurdles…
Immigrant Flows Impact Social Security
Manuel Carvallo immigrated from Mexico at age 40 and became a U.S. citizen at 51. The Georgia pension consultant just reached another milestone, accumulating the 10 years of U.S. work experience required to receive a small Social Security pension when…
U.S. proposes 0.9 percent cut in 2016 Medicare Advantage payments
The U.S. government on Friday proposed a 0.9 percent cut in payments to health insurers for 2016 Medicare Advantage plans, which provide health benefits to more than 16 million elderly or disabled people. The cut is part of a notice issued…
How to Protect Your Identity This Tax Season
The number of people filing their taxes online continues to grow, especially from personal computers as consumers use tools like Intuit’s TurboTax and other filing software options.But as that trend increases, so does the upward tick of security breaches and…
GOP bill prevents ‘double-dipping’ with unemployment benefits
Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) has introduced a measure preventing anyone from simultaneously receiving unemployment insurance and disability benefits. Johnson argued that it seems illogical for people to be eligible for both disability and unemployment payments. “Under current law, some people…
Forum: People are not saving enough for retirement
People aren’t saving enough for retirement, an urgent concern that should be addressed in an upcoming once-a-decade White House summit on aging issues, speakers said at a forum here Thursday. Individual savings will have to supplement future Social Security benefits,…
Here’s a Social Security strategy worth pondering
Is it a good idea to start your Social Security benefits as early as possible (at age 62), even if you don’t need the income right away to meet your living expenses, and then invest this money for future use?…
Push to Boost Defense Spending Puts GOP in Budget Bind
Pressing Pentagon demands in a time of terror threats and Islamic State militants have put newly empowered congressional Republicans in a bind. Defense hawks want to wipe out previous spending cuts to steer more money to the military, but the…
Economy’s Supply Side Sputters
Republicans have been railing against big government for years, but for the past two decades they have all but ignored the growth of one of the nation’s biggest and costliest programs: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). That may be changing.…
Meet the Lawmaker Picked to Produce a Conservative Alternative to Obama’s Budget
Hypocrisy is a given in Washington. So much so that Senate Democrats must believe no one notices just how much of it they are guilty of in their attempts to prevent Congress from funding the Department of Homeland Security. First,…