With U.S. households looking in good financial shape, the Federal Reserve may need to be even more aggressive raising interest rates to cool the economy and bring down high inflation, according to a r...
Tag: Government Finance
You Made $700 From an Online Side Hustle. Now the IRS Will Know.
Now that your 2021 taxes are done—or at least under way—it’s time to focus on a key tax change for 2022 affecting millions of Americans making money through platforms like eBay , Etsy , Airbnb , Venmo...
How to Handle the Taxes on the AT&T Spinoff of Warner Bros.
Text size The Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif. AT&T shareholders have received a 0.242 share of Warner Bros. Discovery for each AT&T share. Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg Bing Guan/B...
Here’s Another Reason to Do a Roth IRA Conversion. Your Heirs Will Thank You.
Dreamstime Text size If you’re planning to leave a tax-deferred account to your children, you may be able to save them a lot of money by doing Roth conversions while you’re alive. Suppose you have a ...
Three things to take care of when you retire—your future self will thank you for it
After a working lifetime of alarm clocks and meetings, you might be looking forward to a lot more unstructured time once you retire. But taking care of one more to-do list early on can set you up for ...
Why Russia Doesn’t Want to Default—Even in a Time of War
Behind the fight over whether Russia should be allowed to pay off its debts is an age-old issue: Borrowers, even in times of war, want to keep their reputations for making investors whole. The U.S. Tr...
Defense Stocks Rose With the Ukraine War. Then a Tight Proposed Budget Set Them Back.
Elias Stein Text size Defense stocks took a surprising blow after a proposed defense budget was released last week. The Biden administration asked Congress for $773 billion to fund defense for fiscal ...
Defense Stocks Take a Hit on U.S. Defense Spending Request
Text size Defense stocks trade for about 18 times estimated 2022 earnings. Jose Luis Magana / AFP) Defense stocks are taking a small hit after details of the coming defense budget were released. On Mo...
‘The dam finally broke’: 10-year Treasury yields spike to breach top of downward trend channel seen since mid-1980s, says Deutsche Bank
Yields on the 10-year Treasury note have spiked through the top line of a downward trend channel tracing back to the mid-1980s, with surging inflation and the Federal Reserve’s reaction to it sparking...
Russia will likely default with April 4 payment due of $2.2 billion, experts say
Investors breathed a sigh of relief last week after the Russian government made a $117 million interest payment on its foreign debt. But a much bigger payment comes due April 4 — to the tune of $2.2 b...
Worried About Getting Audited? Here Are Red Flags for the IRS.
Even though the Internal Revenue Service is auditing fewer taxpayers these days, you still don’t want to put a target on your back. Among those more likely to get audited: Small-business owners with l...
Opinion: Preparing for the great sunset: What you need to know if tax code provisions expire
The hot equities and housing markets have contributed to a surge in U.S. household wealth during the pandemic. According to the Federal Reserve, household wealth grew by $19 trillion to $137 trillion ...
Weekend reads: There’s a recession warning as the Federal Reserve fights inflation
The Federal Reserve this week increased the federal funds rate for the first time since 2018. Long-term market interest rates had risen significantly as investors anticipated that the central bank wou...
What a Russia debt default would mean for financial markets as Ukraine invasion continues
The threat of a Russian default on sovereign debt is seen near, but investors so far aren’t panicking over any potential hit to global financial markets. “While a default would be symbolic, it seems u...
Hey, Gig Worker! Prepare for a Lot More Work When You File Your Taxes.
Self-employed workers who quit salaried jobs last year in the “Great Resignation”—the biggest corporate exodus on record—may find themselves reminiscing about the good old days on a payroll as they pr...
Opinion: The Fed needs to target a floor for the 10-year Treasury, in addition to radically raising the fed funds rate
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell faces the toughest task since Chairman Paul Volcker tamed the Great Inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. And a lot of the pressures driving the most virulent ...
Estate and Gift Taxes 2021-2022: What’s New This Year and What You Need to Know
The federal estate- and gift-tax exemption applies to the total of an individual’s taxable gifts made during life and assets left at death. Above the exemption, the top rate on such transfers is 40%. ...
Standard Deduction 2021-2022: How Much Is It?
The standard deduction is the amount taxpayers can subtract from income if they don’t break out deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, state and local taxes and other items separa...
2021-2022 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Rates
The top tax rate is 37%. For 2026, the top rate is set to return to 39.6%. Photo: Illustration: Tammy Lian The tax code currently has seven income-tax brackets for individuals that range from 10% to 3...
Mortgage Interest Deduction: How It Works in 2022
The number of taxpayers claiming mortgage interest deductions on Schedule A has dropped sharply since the 2017 tax overhaul enacted both direct and indirect curbs on them. For 2019, about 13 million f...
Why Moving to a State with Low Income Taxes Could Cost You
That’s what financial professionals are telling clients who are fed up with high income tax rates in their home state and weighing an out-of-state move. They’re counseling clients to take an in-depth ...
Warren Buffett: Berkshire Hathaway Paid 1% of All U.S. Corporate Tax Receipts
Berkshire Hathaway has the largest amount of domestic infrastructure assets of any American company and paid $3.3 billion in federal taxes in 2021—or nearly 1% of all corporate tax receipts—CEO Warren...
Many Americans Will Be Getting Smaller Tax Refunds This Year. Here’s Why.
The flood of federal pandemic-relief money was welcome last year, but it is causing disappointment and confusion as taxpayers prepare their 2021 returns. Many will be getting smaller-than-expected ref...
The WSJ Tax Guide 2022: What to Know Now About Tax Filing and Refunds
Feb. 18, 2022 5:30 am ET Get ready for a wild tax season. Every year more than 200 million Americans sign and send income-tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service. But the 2022 filing season will b...
‘We live 5 minutes from our in-laws who have a larger home’: Is it a good idea to swap houses? Will I end up with a surprise tax bill?
I am a California resident. My husband and I own a 1,800-square-foot home that we bought in 2019 for $1.5 million. We have between 40% and 50% equity in the property due to a large down payment. We li...
Biden’s Wealth Tax Proposal Would Target More Than Billionaires
Text size President Joe Biden’s new budget proposal includes a wealth tax it says would target the top 0.01% of households. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images About the author: Thomas Hoenig is a dist...