Despite attempts by Chinese authorities to contain the coronavirus, the numbers make clear that the virus is now spreading around the world. According to the World Health Organization, there are 79,331 confirmed cases, of which 77,262 are in China and 2,069 are outside of China (as of February 24, 2020). Unfortunately, the numbers only seem to be growing, with the Washington Post recently reporting that there were 833 confirmed cases in South Korea and 53 confirmed cases in the U.S.

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A new year has begun. It’s time to evaluate what worked well for you financially in 2018 and whether you need to make any changes for 2019. As you do that, you’ll want to put together a plan for this year’s charitable giving.

A good place to start the process is to consider the following items:

1. Review your donations for 2018 and how you made them. How much would you like to donate in 2019?

2. Did you exceed the standard deduction and itemize your taxes for the 2018 tax year? Do you anticipate exceeding the standard deduction and itemizing your taxes for 2019?

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The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLFP) began in 2007 with a simple idea: provide debt relief to borrowers in critical but often low-paying careers after they make 10 years of timely student loan repayments. The U.S. Department of Education cited law enforcement and emergency management personnel, public school teachers, and legal aid attorneys as examples of those who would be eligible for the PSLFP. Sounds great, right? But in spring 2017, many individuals who chose public service and nonprofit careers learned that their federal student loans may not qualify for the PSLFP after all. Here, we’ll take a deeper dive into the qualifications for this program, plus new developments that may bring welcome relief to some borrowers.

Qualification criteria

To qualify for the PSLFP, a student loan must meet four criteria:

1. The loan must be a Direct loan.

2. The repayments must be on time and for the specified amount.

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It’s tough to remember how we managed our daily lives without smartphones. How did we get around town without quick access to Google Maps? Pay our bills on time before we had credit card and banking apps? Or let someone know we were running late without text messaging?

Because completing tasks on smartphones is so easy, we tend to overlook the sensitivity of the data we store on them. And that could be a recipe for disaster. To help you safeguard your confidential data, we’re sharing five mistakes that most of us make when using our smartphones, along with some simple fixes that you can put in place today.

1) Not auto-locking our phones or using passwords

Most smartphone users don’t password-protect their devices, making information vulnerable if phones are lost or stolen.

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When it comes to filing your tax return, you put in the time and effort to complete every form accurately and according to the instructions. But even if you do everything by the book, a tax identity thief may still file a fraudulent return in your name. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. In fact, despite having prevented more than 787,000 fraudulent tax returns in 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) paid out $239 million in “suspect” refunds.

So, what steps should you take if you find yourself a victim of tax identity theft? To help answer this question, let’s take a look at how cyber criminals obtain your personal information.
How does tax identity theft work?

Cyber criminals can obtain your personal information in a number of ways, including the following:

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With its passage in December 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) changed the deductions for interest on mortgage and home equity loans. On February 21, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provided clarification on how the TCJA will be applied to mortgage and home equity loan interest deductions.

Initially, application of the TCJA was ambiguous because of (1) definitions from the 1986 “old” tax law and (2) the multiple ways to use home equity. The IRS’s recent guidance establishes that the interest on some refinanced mortgages and home equity loans and lines of credit will be deductible under the TCJA if it qualifies as acquisition debt. Here, we’ll answer some questions on how the TCJA is applied to mortgage and home equity loan interest, starting with a definition of residential debt.

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