Andrey_Popov // Shutterstock

The clock is ticking on several significant tax changes that could impact your 2025 return—and your long-term financial strategy. With new provisions from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) taking effect and key deadlines approaching, now is the time to understand what’s changing and how to make the most of these opportunities.

In this article, Domain Money outlines tax changes taking effect in 2026.

The Big Changes You Need to Know

The OBBBA, signed into law on July 4, 2025, introduced a mix of permanent extensions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act alongside new temporary provisions that could significantly impact your tax bill. Here’s what matters most:

New Deductions for 2025 (Retroactive for This Year’s Return)

The Senior Deduction: If you’re 65 or older, you may qualify for an additional deduction of up to $6,000 ($12,000 for married couples filing jointly). This phases out based on your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI)—starting at $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for joint filers. The deduction amount is reduced by 6 cents for every $1 your MAGI is over the starting threshold.

Enhanced Child Tax Credit: Families will see a modest boost, with the Child Tax Credit increasing from $2,000 to $2,200 per qualifying child for 2025.

Auto Loan Interest Deduction: Purchased a new American-assembled vehicle in 2025? You might be able to deduct up to $10,000 in interest paid on your loan. The vehicle must weigh less than 14,000 pounds and have its final assembly in the U.S., and it must be for personal use. This deduction phases out for individuals with MAGI over $100,000 ($200,000 for joint filers).

No Tax on Tips and Overtime: Service workers can now deduct up to $25,000 in tip income, while overtime workers can deduct up to $12,500 ($25,000 for joint filers). Both come with income-based phaseouts starting at $150,000 MAGI ($300,000 for joint filers).

Energy Credits Sunset: If you’ve been considering clean energy improvements or an electric vehicle purchase, act quickly. Clean vehicle credits end for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025, while residential energy credits for solar panels, heat pumps, and other improvements expire for property placed into service after Dec. 31, 2025.

The SALT Cap Gets a Major Boost

For years, the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions has been a pain point for taxpayers in high-tax states. Starting with your 2025 return, that cap jumps to $40,000 for single filers and married couples filing jointly. The limit will increase by 1% annually through 2029 before reverting to $10,000 in 2030.

However, there’s a caveat: The higher cap phases out for those with MAGI over $500,000 (or $250,000 for married filing separately), reducing by 30 cents for every dollar over that threshold.

Standard Deduction Increases

The standard deduction gets an extra 5% bump on top of inflation adjustments for 2025. For married couples filing jointly, t

Andrei David Stock // Shutterstock

You’ve probably used your health flexible spending account (FSA) to pay for qualified medical expenses like prescription contact lenses, copays, and dental cleanings. But if you have FSA dollars remaining in your account toward the end of your plan year, you’ll want to find other eligible expenses to spend them on soon. FSA money is “use it or lose it,” which means you’ll forfeit leftover dollars in your account after the deadline.

Since a health FSA is an employer-sponsored health benefit, the IRS decides what counts as a qualified expense. You’ll want to use your FSA funds on IRS-approved medical costs to get the most tax savings. Be sure to check with your FSA provider or employer to see what’s eligible under your plan and whether you need paperwork, such as a letter of medical necessity (LOMN), to make an expense FSA eligible. You should also keep receipts and other proof of purchase in case they’re needed for reimbursement.

Below, GoodRx, a platform for medication savings, shares 77 ways to use your health FSA funds for yourself, your spouse, or a qualified dependent.

Key takeaways:

• If you don’t use your flexible spending account (FSA) dollars before the deadline — typically Dec. 31 — you risk losing them.
• A health FSA lets you use pretax dollars for eligible medical, dental, and vision expenses, including everyday items like prescription medications and menstrual products.
• Some employers offer a grace period or let you carry over a set amount of unused funds into the next plan year, so check your plan details. For 2025, you can carry over up to $660 into 2026 if your employer allows it.

Dental

In general, you can use your FSA to pay for care to prevent or treat dental disease from an orthodontist, a dentist, or another qualified dental professional. Here are 18 dental expenses that may qualify as FSA eligible:

• Braces
• Crowns
• Dental bonding
• Dental bridges
• Dental implants
• Dental sealants
• Dental veneers
• Dentures
• Fillings
• Gum cleaning
• Inlays
• Occlusal guards to prevent teeth grinding
• Onlays

Jim Bennett // Getty Images

Throughout history, there have been artists that refuse to reduce themselves to monolithic stereotypes and conform to discriminatory musical standards and expectations. Instead, individuals like Ma Rainey, often called the “Mother of the Blues,” overtly explored themes of identity and lesbian self-affirmation. Angela Y. Davis called Rainey’s “Prove It on Me,” a precursor to the lesbian cultural movement of the 1970s.

Generations of LGBTQ+ artists have followed suit, challenging the industry to create more variable genres with avant-garde style, elliptical lyrics, and formative vision. Some of these artists—Wendy Carlos, MikeQ, David Bowie, and Patrick Haggerty—have made music history all while contributing to cultural movements, LGBTQ+ rights, and freedom of self-expression that have extended beyond the stage.

To acknowledge and recognize these achievements, Stacker examined books, interviews, and primary news sources and compiled a list of 25 times LGBTQ+ artists made music history. Some of the artists on this list may be familiar, but others might be lesser-known visionaries and pioneers in the music industry. Let’s celebrate their resilience and influence that have paved, or are currently paving, the way for generations of artists.

Pete Still/Redferns // Getty Images

Freddie Mercury: ‘The note heard around the world’

With his highly theatrical style and extraordinary vocal range, Freddie Mercury is recognized for belting out some of the most distinctive anthems in music history. Mercury’s vivid note, “Aaaaaay-o,” performed at the 1985 Live Aid concert came to be known as “the note heard around the world.”

Max Redfern/Redferns

Sylvester: The song that became a disco classic

The embodiment of disco, Sylvester rose to fame with hits “Dance” and “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” The latter would later be recognized as an anthem of empowermen

PeopleImages // Shutterstock

AI systems can route messages, update records, make decisions, and trigger entire workflows across multiple apps without you touching anything. But as AI shifts more and more from being an assistive tool to powering autonomous systems, humans have a new kind of responsibility: making sure nothing goes wrong.

Even the smartest AI systems still struggle to understand nuance, edge cases, or the unwritten rules teams use to make decisions. When autonomous agents act without that context, small gaps can quickly turn into big problems. That’s where human-in-the-loop (HITL) comes in.

Instead of letting an AI system run unchecked, you can design checkpoints where humans step in with experience, context, and common sense. This intervention ensures that the decisions that should involve humans actually do involve humans. And with an AI orchestration tool, you can build those checkpoints directly into an AI workflow.

Zapier shares what human-in-the-loop really means, why it’s necessary, and some practical patterns for adding HITL to agentic workflows.

What does human-in-the-loop mean?

Human-in-the-loop refers to the intentional integration of human oversight into autonomous AI workflows at critical decision points. Instead of letting an agent execute tasks end-to-end and hoping it makes the right call, HITL adds user approval, rejection, or feedback checkpoints before the workflow continues.

Let’s say you’re building an automated lead gen system that identifies potential customers, adds them to your CRM, and sends out targeted emails. Most of that work can run autonomously, but you might need human approval if the agent wants to update an existing customer record or maybe to review emails before they get sent.

And it’s not about being a control freak (although it’s great for that too). HITL gives you all the benefits of AI automation running at full speed, plus peace of mind when decisions carry risk, nuance, or downstream impact. It prevents irreversible errors, ensures compliance in regulated scenarios, and catches ethical issues that AI might overlook. Every approval, rejection, or correction from a human to the AI workflow also becomes training data for the agent. Over time, AI systems learn from your feedback and improve performance.

With an AI orchestration tool, you can build human-in-the-loop steps and checkpoints directly into your AI workflows and AI agents. That means no extra setup for HITL, and you’ll be able to log every pause, human decision, and context for compliance and review.

When should you use HITL in AI workflows?

If you have an AI agent taking action on your behalf, think hard about where you might need a human in the loop. While the goal of AI automation is speed, speed becomes less relevant wh

ANGELA WEISS // Getty Images

Food justice is the idea that everyone deserves access to fresh, nutritious food that is both appealing and appropriate for one’s culture. It examines the food system as a whole and emphasizes that equity and care should be top of mind for each stage of the food process—from how the land is cultivated to the workers tending to the crops to those who consume the product.

Food justice is also the right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food. Efforts and initiatives to ensure people have access to food are not engaging in charity. Instead, they are supporting an individual’s right to food options. The same is true for farmworker resources and support.

Based on the food justice framework, everyone involved in food production should be treated well and paid a fair wage, regardless of their documentation status or ethnic background.

Similar, and often used interchangeably, is the food sovereignty framework. The basics remain the same, but food sovereignty goes beyond providing access to food and questioning the imbalanced food systems. Food sovereignty pushes for community self-sufficiency and places marginalized communities at the helm of their own healing and sustainability.

Working within a food justice framework requires an acknowledgment of the ongoing and intentional barriers that marginalized communities face in connection with access to food, namely Black and Brown communities and those facing homelessness. Almost a quarter of Black households and 1 in 5 Hispanic households experienced food insecurity in 2022, according to Department of Agriculture data.

Taylor Scott, founder of RVA Community Fridges, a mutual-aid group based around the Richmond, Virginia area, says this includes taking note of food insecurity’s historical roots. Scott told Stacker this includes “where we get our food from, how we get foods, what foods we can get, and why those things are the way they are.” It also means breaking down existing systems, Scott added.

Analyzing the food system from different perspectives creates the opportunity for varied approaches. Organizations have leaned into food justice work in many ways, including building and managing community fridges, connecting Black farmers to funding and community, making and serving meals to those who need them, and advocating for lasting policy change.

Through a combination of interviews, local and federal data, and news reports, Stacker compiled a list of 10 organizations throughout the U.S. with missions connected to food justice or food sovereignty through direct food services and assistance, teaching and cultivating positive land stewardship, support of Black farmers, or food rescue efforts and initiatives.

Ground Picture // Shutterstock

Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network

SAAFON is a nonprofit that connects Black farmers in the southeastern United States. Its mission revolves around a