Personal Finance

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at transition Covid-19 advisory board briefing on Nov. 9, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Photo by Joe Raedle | Getty Images Student loan forgiveness is looking more like a possibility under President-elect Joe Biden, but an unintended consequence may emerge unless Washington intervenes: a tax on loan forgiveness.

Mary Roberts has been working five jobs since August to stay afloat after the coronavirus pandemic decimated the cruise industry, where she was a director and choreographer. Mary Roberts Mary Roberts is not immune to the hustle as an artist. But the coronavirus pandemic has presented a challenge like she’s never seen before. Roberts, 39,

Thomas Barwick | DigitalVision | Getty Images Giving a few bucks to your favorite charity in time for the holidays? You can finally collect a tax break for it. The CARES Act, which was signed into law this spring, included a “partial above the line deduction” for charitable contributions. This allows people who take the

There’s more than just candy and seasonal goodies you might want to avoid at store checkouts this holiday season. Watch out for potentially expensive credit card offers, as well. Retailers typically ramp up their efforts each year during busy shopping months to get you to apply for a card, which might come with some sort

Matt Bird | Corbis | Getty Images Where is the future of financial advice headed? The answers always seem fraught with risk and uncertainty. While the bull market in stocks has gone a long way to helping the advice industry recover from the reputational fallout of the financial crisis, technology, demographics and regulatory confusion continue

Hero Images | Hero Images | Getty Images If you’re still working well into your 60s, odds are you’re doing so to bolster your finances. More than 6 out of 10 people polled by Provision Living said that they’re working into retirement purely for financial reasons. The company, a provider of senior living communities, surveyed

Hero Images | Getty Images If you’re looking to get engaged, take heart: You might not have to shell out a lot for that bling. That’s according to a recent survey from TD Ameritrade, which found that the traditional rule that an engagement ring should cost three months’ salary could be going by the wayside.

President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. has issued new sanctions on Iran’s central bank at the “highest level” while speaking in the Oval Office on September 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee | Getty Images President Donald Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns could give the public an inside look at his finances

Claire Rhee is a third-year student at Stanford Medicine. Source: Claire Rhee Claire Rhee describes the experience of applying for medical school as “relatively cheap.” Between the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT; application fees at 15 different schools; and other related expenses, she and her family spent close to $9,000. And that was before

Emergencies occur. So, it makes sense to start putting money aside. Yet many Americans aren’t. In fact, 28% of Americans have no emergency savings, a July survey from personal financial website Bankrate.com found. “Financial emergencies will happen, it’s only a matter of when,” said Kathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. More from

Jason York | Getty Images If you’re planning to roll over all your assets from a traditional individual retirement account to a Roth version, you might want to tap the brakes. While Roth IRAs grow tax-free and withdrawals generally also are untaxed — and they come with no lifetime required minimum distributions, or RMDs —

Retirees will spend a significant amount of money on health care. Still, many older Americans don’t plan properly for it. A healthy male-female couple retiring at age 65 in 2019 can now expect to shell out $285,000 on health-care expenses in retirement, according to Fidelity Investments’ annual analysis. Fidelity’s analysis, which assumes the couple are

Students arriving at school Hero Images | Getty Images Most people remember their first summer or after-school job, which provided cash to help pay for college or a car. Today, vehicles and higher education — among other expenses — cost significantly more. Yet fewer teenagers are working. The share of teens participating in the labor

Prospective home buyers arrive to tour a house for sale in Dunlap, Illinois, U.S., on Sunday, Aug. 19, 2018. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images Oliver Ellerbe thought he had found the perfect home for his aging parents. The brick house in Katy, Texas, near Houston, was just a five-minute drive from his own

Photo by Hero Images via Getty Images You may feel ready to work beyond age 65. Your boss has a different story. Whether your retirement nest egg could use a little more strengthening or you’re looking to keep busy, there are plenty of reasons why you’d like to keep punching in. Your employer could probably

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order during an event in The Villages, Florida, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019. EveEdelheit | Bloomberg | Getty Images A little-used Medicare option is getting a big push from the White House. An executive order signed on Thursday by President Donald Trump includes a call for

About 100,000 ex-employees of General Electric will face a choice soon: stay in the company’s pension plan or accept a lump sum and cut ties instead. Whether you count yourself among those former GE workers or are employed by another company with a similar option on the table, advisors say the decision shouldn’t be made

Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., D-N.J., speaks during a House Democrats’ news conference on Wednesday, July 30, 2014. Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty Images When Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., D-N.J., visited a senior living center in Englewood, New Jersey, last week, he had one main focus: Social Security reform. Speaking to a room

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) holds up an example of the ‘postcard-sized’ form he wants people to use when filing their taxes during a markup session of the proposed GOP tax reform legislation in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 6, 2017 in Washington, DC. Getty Images The

Sen. Kamala Harris Elijah Nouvelage | Reuters Student debt has become a central issue in the 2020 presidential campaign. First, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proposed canceling $640 billion of it. Then Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he’d erase all $1.6 trillion of it. Now Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has released a plan to forgive student

Retiring as a millionaire may seem like a fantasy rather than a practical financial goal, yet it’s possible with savvy monthly saving. Reaching that milestone, however, takes determination, especially if you don’t start until later in life. Luckily, personal finance site NerdWallet crunched the numbers, broken down by age group, to demonstrate how much you’ll

Ariel Skelley | DigitalVision | Getty Images The CFP Board of Standards, the group overseeing the Certified Financial Planner credential, will overhaul its practices, making it easier for investors to spot financial advisors with a questionable past. In a Tuesday afternoon phone call, the group announced it would establish an independent task force to review

Come next summer, your financial advisor may have something to tell you. Make sure you listen carefully. A new federal regulation calls for a broad swath of the nation’s advisors, by June 30, to put clients’ interests first when giving investment advice. They’ll also have to disclose conflicts of interest, and broker-dealers will be tasked

When former vice president Joe Biden recently announced his plans for older Americans, he joined his fellow Democratic presidential candidates in calling for the expansion of Social Security. “We should be increasing, not decreasing, Social Security,” Biden said at a recent AARP Iowa forum. “It’s within our capacity to do so.” Former U.S. Vice President

Webb Institute Source: Webb Institute Even as college becomes increasingly unaffordable for many students and their families, it is still possible to graduate owing next to nothing. “There are so many college-bound students and their families that are nervous about assuming too much debt,” said Robert Franek, editor in chief at The Princeton Review. However,

LawrenceSawyer/Getty Images Samantha Jokela, a 21-year-old college student from Upton, Massachusetts, will be graduating from college a year earlier than expected, thanks to dual enrollment. Dual enrollment is a state-run program that allows students to take college-level classes, often through a local community college, while they are still in high school. As many as 3

Ariel Skelley | Getty Images Want to retire in the city with the most sunny days per year? Or one with no state or local sales tax? A new list by SeniorAdvice.com — a housing referral service — ranks the best locations to spend your golden years. The site focused on mid-sized cities, since “most

Photo: Wikicommons When Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren earlier this week unveiled the details of her bill to cancel student debt, she stressed how it would deliver significant financial relief to borrowers of color. “The day our bill gets signed into law, that black-white wealth gap would shrink by 25 points,” the Massachusetts senator said.

Hero Images | Hero Images | Getty Images If you’re in your 20s or 30s without children, the need to purchase life insurance can seem unnecessary. Putting it off, however, may cost you. “The better health you’re in and the younger you are, the cheaper your insurance premium typically will be,” said certified financial planner

The Internal Revenue Services offices in Washington, D.C. Adam Jeffery | CNBC If you’ve been trading or mining cryptocurrency, the Internal Revenue Service is about to come knocking. The IRS on Friday announced that it’s sending letters to more than 10,000 taxpayers with virtual currency transactions who have potentially failed to report income and pay