It’s kind of a traditional halfway point for the tax season as we reach the end of this month. It’s not a perfect demarcation by any means, but forms start to arrive in mid-January so by the end of February it’s been about a month and a half since people have started to think about taxes. And with the April 15th deadline, that means you also have about a month and a half until you should have your taxes filed.
This seems wild because if you think about how far away April 15th is, it still feels distant. This makes it easy to tell yourself that six weeks is plenty of time. Yet, here is a short list of things that can show you just how fast time flies, for can you believe that six weeks ago …
 
1. Joe Biden was still president.

2. You may still have looked forward to getting snow.

3. You were waiting for the first federal holiday of the year - we’ve now had two.

4. We didn’t even know who would be playing in the Super Bowl.

5. Your kids had some serious TikTok worries.
 
So sure, things certainly aren’t to the dire stage yet, but it can be very easy for time to get way from us. Maybe then it is still time to get this stuff done, but maybe it’s not quite as much as you think. 

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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I try to be very mindful of not being political in this space. After all, there is little I could accomplish from atop a soapbox when people are coming to us to deal with the world as it is and not looking for a path to utopia. Yet recently I wrote about how President Trump’s insistence on tariffs is going to make people pay more for more items. It is simply undeniable that if you require someone to pay more money along the way from making a product to getting it to a customer, then the consumer is going to be made to take on some of that burden.

It's important to also remember that when we talk about consumers, we are not only talking about how it affects households, but it’s also going to affect the cost of what companies need to make other products (think automobiles and construction) and even what local governments must pay for things like asphalt and fire trucks.

And how are these entities going to make up that difference? Yes, yet again, it is most likely going to be passed along to the customer at the end of the line.

It is easy to see how this would happen with businesses – you’ll pay them more for many types of contractor work if they are paying more for materials and you’ll pay more for a new car if it costs more to make one. But when it comes to governments needing to make up some space on their budget, then you start talking about potential tax increases – be it state or local sales tax or your property taxes.

I don’t mean to preach gloom and doom here, but I think it is valuable to be mindful of the potential ramifications of situations that are still very much in flux. And no matter how we feel about how great or how rough this may turn out to be politically in the end, we are all going to face similar trials along the way. So, consider this another reminder of how mindfulness can help you on those travels so then you can address things as they happen and not only realize it was happening when it is already too late.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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Now that we are fully into the tax filing season, we know there are some questions that we are going to hear many times over the next few months. Of these, there is one that will sound louder and more often than the rest – Where’s My Refund?

It’s not as if I don’t understand why this happens. If I knew that I was owed thousands of dollars but did not quite know when I was going to get it, I would be quite interested in getting that answer, as well.  Thankfully, it is such a ubiquitous question, though, that the IRS even has a tool to get this answer that they call Where’s My Refund.

The tool is located at www.irs.gov/wheres-my-refund and is exactly what it sounds like. It can even start giving you information as soon as 24 hours after you e-file a current year return. To access your information on the site, all you will need is your Social Security number, your filing status, and the amount of the refund you are expecting.

I can’t guarantee that this tool is going to give you the answers that you want. There are numerous reasons that a tax filing or refund payment can be held up for various amounts of time. It will, however, give you that information so you can plan accordingly.

Beyond that, there are no secret means that we can use to get you a better answer. The IRS works as the IRS works – which sometimes can feel pretty quick and at other times can feel painfully slow. There is nothing we can do to get behind the information they are giving you. A good rule of thumb, though, is that that quicker you file your taxes, the quicker you can expect any refund, so let’s keep working together to get you the answers that you want to hear.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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It turns out that taxes aren’t the first thing everything is going to have to think about financially with the new Trump administration as promised tariffs against big trading partners are being implemented this week (at least to some degree, as even passing those has had some push and pull since they were originally announced).

As always, I am going to do my best to leave politics out of this discussion. No matter where you land on whether these tariffs should be implemented or not, there is little debate that they are at least going to raise some prices on some products. Just how much these increases will be and how long they will last remain to be seen, but the fact they will exist is part of the deal of instituting these new tariffs.

So even if this doesn’t push into the wide-ranging, long-term planning of tax policy changes, this could still represent a change for many in the country. As such, it serves as a good reminder about the importance of budgeting.

We have seen enough inflation in the last few years to understand that there is little we can do about these price changes. If you have bought eggs recently, you have been forced to concede that the price is just the price. As the old adage goes, if you want an omelet, you have to break a few wallets. And we are now bound to see this happening with other goods, too, where no matter how much you shop around or look for sales, some things are just going to be more expensive than they used to be.

How did you handle this when there were larger, across-the-board jumps in the wake of the COVID pandemic? For yes, to some degree you must just accept it, but everyone’s paycheck didn’t increase at the same rate so that the numbers canceled each other out and it was barely noticed. Instead, many people did feel a real squeeze.

Budgeting is very much tied in with mindfulness and being aware of where your money is going. If some things are going up in price too much to feel affordable anymore, maybe you can decide that you don’t need to keep buying it. Of course, though, other things are still going to be necessary. Being mindful of where you shift money away from to cover that is important then so that you can make the best decisions for you.

For no matter what, this is not something that is just going to happen without notice. So be aware now as it begins so that you can navigate it as best as possible for your personal situation.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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