News

Accelerate or postpone discretionary medical expenses when feasible. The new health law reduced the amount of unreimbursed medical expenses that you can claim when itemizing the deductions. Taxpayers under the age of 65 can claim deductions for expenses that exceed 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. If you are age 65 and older you may still deduct total medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross temporarily but that ends in 201If your expenses are right on the borderline, you may want to take care of any pending medical services and appointments now, so you can boost your deduction for 201If your expenses were too low to claim the medical expense deduction for 2014, consider postponing discretionary services a few weeks into the New Year..Sen. Mark Begich introduced S. 896 on May 8, 201It has since been referred to the Committee on Finance.."Medicare Beneficiary Savings and the Affordable Care Act," Department of Health and Human Services, February 201"Reliance on Capital Gains and Dividend Income Tends to Rise with Age," Tax Foundation, December 2005..The amount you receive depends on your income and assets. If your income is on the higher end you still might qualify for partial Extra Help. Keep in mind that to receive the assistance you must first enroll in a drug plan AND the drugs you take must be listed on the plan's formulary.."It's highly disturbing that such a large number of survey participants have been forced to access food pantries," Johnson says. "This illustrates the dire situation faced by households of those who depend on Social Security for most of their income when food prices jump into overdrive," she says. "Over the past 12 months, the price of bacon is up 11 percent, beef up 10.6 percent and fresh fish up 8.5 percent" Johnson notes..But you can help put a stop to the suspicious phone calls - report them! Here's the info that you will need:.The study examined the increase in costs of 32 key items between 2000 and January 201The items were chosen because they are typical of the costs seniors must bear. Of the 32 costs analyzed, 20 exceeded the COLA. The selected items represent eight categories, weighted by approximate expenditure..Giving COVID vaccines in school gymnasiums and community centers has been just as healing for those giving the shots as for those of us getting them. Our vaccine hall was bubbling with excited happy voices and laughter. The moment I entered I was struck by how strange and rare that laughter had become and how much I had missed that sound!.Under current law, immigrants who work without legal authorization, but who later gain legal status, aren't prosecuted for using fraudulent or even stolen Social Security numbers. Those who kept evidence of earnings, like W2s, could later reinstate unauthorized earnings under a valid Social Security number and legally claim benefits based on those illegal earnings. Suspicious wage reports remain in the Earnings Suspense File until the Social Security Administration receives evidence to link the unidentified earnings to a valid work-authorized Social Security number.