Personal finance

Valeriy_G | iStock | Getty Images Married couples have the choice to file taxes jointly or separately every season. While filing together generally pays off, splitting returns may be better in some scenarios, financial experts say. Married filing separately involves two individual returns, each reporting their own income, deductions and credits. And the tax code

Marko Geber | DigitalVision | Getty Images U.S. stocks whiplashed Thursday following Russia’s attack on Ukraine as investors fled risk assets and turned towards safe havens such as gold. It can be a difficult time for investors who have been used to seeing markets gain and are now dealing with volatility that comes with global

John King listens to stories at Edgehill Farm September 08, 2019 in Gaithersburg, MD. Katherine Frey | The Washington Post | Getty Images John B. King, Jr., who served as education secretary under former President Barack Obama, has joined a number of other leading government officials calling on President Joe Biden to cancel student debt

Filadendron | E+ | Getty Images Companies are paying closer attention to what they pay their employees these days. To that point, 66% of organizations recently surveyed by Payscale said a pay equity analysis is a planned initiative in 2022, a 20% increase over last year. Pay equity is essentially equal pay for work of

Tom Werner | DigitalVision | Getty Images This tax season, which runs through April 18, is shaping up to be yet another complicated one for filers. Phone call volumes to the IRS are at record levels, the agency has a backlog of millions of claims from previous years and some pandemic-era changes still apply to

Picking the right college has increasingly become a question of cost. But not everyone is choosing the most economical option. Since the start of the pandemic, college enrollment has continued to sink. For the most part, community colleges are the hardest hit, followed by public four-year colleges, according to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse

Iryna Imago | Istock | Getty Images Ah, the joys of homeownership … until something breaks and there’s no landlord to call. If you just moved into your new home or are in the market for a house, be aware that 77% of homeowners have dealt with an unexpected issue that required shelling out money

krisanapong detraphiphat | Moment | Getty Images American consumers reported losing more than $5.8 billion to fraud last year, up from $3.4 billion in 2020 (an increase of more than 70%), the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday. Almost 2.8 million consumers filed a fraud report to the agency in 2021 — the highest number on

Geri Lavrov | Moment | Getty Images More than half of unemployed men in their 30s have criminal records — a dynamic with implications for hiring practices and ongoing challenges finding workers during the pandemic-era labor crunch, according to research published by economists at RAND Corp. About 6% of men at age 35 are unemployed,

Nearly 5.4 million new business applications were filed in 2021, up from 4.3 million the previous year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need dedication and should be “armed with information,” according to Zuleyka Strasner, founder and CEO of Zero Grocery, a plastic-free online delivery service that operates

PeopleImages | E+ | Getty Images The Social Security Administration recommends beneficiaries visit its website as the first stop for service as the agency works to reopen its field offices. But many people are reluctant to apply for benefits online. Only about half of retirees have used that method since 2013, according to the Center

Millions of Americans are quitting their jobs and rethinking what they want when it comes to work and work-life balance. Companies are responding, meeting their employees’ needs in areas like remote work, flexible hours, four-day workweeks, compensation and more. This story is part of a series looking at the “Great Reshuffle” and the shift in

Russell Toll and his wife, Heidi, when he returned from service in Iraq in 2009. Russell Toll When the child tax credit checks started to be delivered in July of last year, Russell Toll saw it as an investment in his family. With the help of the credit, the Dallas-area resident was able to speed

Getty Images The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted millions of Americans to put plans, including weddings, on hold. As 2022 unfolds and, we hope, the worst of the pandemic is behind us, nuptials are expected to take place in record numbers. The Wedding Report, a wedding market research firm, projects there will be 2.5 million weddings

damircudic | E+ | Getty Images As the IRS struggles with a backlog of millions of returns, the agency has temporarily stopped sending out more than a dozen types of automated notices, including some for unpaid taxes.   However, a suspended notice doesn’t mean interest stops accruing on outstanding balances, said National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins

Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday pledged a crackdown on student loan servicers that flout rules on loan forgiveness for public servants. The government agency said it “plans to prioritize” oversight of student loans in the coming year, with a “specific focus” on monitoring how servicers are engaging with

PeopleImages | iStock | Getty Images There was a time not too long ago when holding “AMT-free” municipal bond funds might have made perfect sense for many investors. These days? Maybe not so much. With a small share of taxpayers subject to the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, since a federal tax overhaul took effect

Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images Long-term care expenses are growing, with sizable hikes for home-based services as the industry struggles to meet soaring demand from aging Americans.    That’s according to Genworth’s 2021 Cost of Care Survey, a yearly report covering nationwide senior caregiving. While the median yearly costs rose across all provider types, home-based

Getty Images Just months after a federal $15 minimum wage failed to take shape, Californians may get the chance to vote on even higher minimum hourly pay. A measure to raise the state’s minimum wage to $18 began to collect signatures in February. If the campaign, called the Living Wage Act of 2022, gets 700,000

Prasit photo | Moment | Getty Images The U.S. wealth management industry is poised to grow by about 5% annually over the next five years, while certain segments of the investor population are positioned to see the biggest boost, according to a new report from McKinsey & Company. Three investor sub-groups, in particular, are showing