Markus Andrews

Many taxpayers are eager to file returns to collect a refund, but it’s important to gather the necessary tax forms first.
Filing an incomplete return could flag the IRS system, delay processing or trigger an audit, experts say.
Here’s a checklist of the key tax forms for 2024 filings and when to expect them.

Catherine Ivill – Ama | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Many taxpayers are eager to file returns quickly to collect a refund, but it’s important to gather the necessary tax forms first, experts say.
Every year, employers and financial companies report income and other activity on so-called information returns, such as W-2s and 1099s, with a copy going to taxpayers and the IRS.

The agency has “very sophisticated software” that compares information returns to what’s reported on your filing, said Elizabeth Young, director of tax practice and ethics for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, or AICPA.
Your return can be “flagged for audit” when there’s a mismatch, she said. 
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While the IRS issues most tax refunds within 21 days, some returns may require “additional review” and can take longer, according to the agency.
Here’s a breakdown of the key tax forms you’ll need to minimize that risk as you file your return this season — and when to expect them.

When to expect tax forms 

Although many tax forms come in January, others may take until mid-February to March or longer, according to the AICPA. Typically, investment statements are among the last forms to arrive, especially for more complicated assets.

For earnings, your tax forms may include a W-2 for wages, 1099-NEC for contract or gig economy work, 1099-G for unemployment income and 1099-R for retirement plan distributions. 
However, your return should reflect income even when you don’t receive a tax form, Young said. 
“If you earn it, it’s reportable,” she said. “You’re accountable for it.”

Other forms can help secure tax credits and deductions.
You can claim an “above-the-line deduction” even if you don’t itemize tax breaks. Tax forms for these may include a 1098-E for student loan interest, 5498 for individual retirement account contributions or 5498-SA for health savings account deposits. 
If itemized tax breaks exceed the standard deduction, you may need a 1098 for mortgage interest, your annual giving statement or property tax credits. 
You also may need a 1098-T for education tax breaks or receipts to claim the child and dependent care tax credit.    

‘Check your mail routinely’ 

As your tax forms arrive, it’s important to stay organized, said certified public accountant Brian Long, senior tax advisor at Wealth Enhancement in Minneapolis.
“Check your mail routinely,” he said. However, some forms may come digitally, so you’ll want to check your online accounts periodically for updates.
You can use your “prior-year tax return as a checklist,” Long said. But keep in mind that you may need fewer or more tax forms this season, depending on your situation. 

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President Donald Trump ordered a temporary freeze on federal aid in an effort to review funding for causes that don’t align with his agenda.
The Education Department said the freeze will not affect federal Pell Grants and student loans.

The White House on Monday ordered a pause on federal grants and loans, according to a memo, but the Department of Education said the freeze will not affect student loans or financial aid for college.
The freeze, which could affect billions of dollars in aid, noted an exception for Social Security and Medicare. The pause “does not include assistance provided directly to individuals,” according to the memo.

The pause gives the White House time to review government funding for causes that don’t fit with President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, according to Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The memo specifically cited “financial assistance for foreign aid, non-governmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

What student aid may be affected

The U.S. Department of Education said the freeze on federal aid will not affect federal Pell Grants and student loans. It also has no bearing on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the upcoming year.
“The temporary pause does not impact Title I, IDEA, or other formula grants, nor does it apply to Federal Pell Grants and Direct Loans under Title IV [of the Higher Education Act],” Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann said in a statement.
In addition to the federal financial aid programs that fall under Title IV, Title I provides financial assistance to school districts with children from low-income families. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provides funding for students with disabilities.

The funding pause “only applies to discretionary grants at the Department of Education,” Biedermann said. “These will be reviewed by Department leadership for alignment with Trump Administration priorities.”

The pause could affect federal work-study programs and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, which are provided in bulk to colleges to provide to students, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
However, many colleges have already drawn down their funds for the spring term, so this might not affect even that aid, he said. It may still affect grants to researchers, which often include funding for graduate research assistantships, he added.

Why the freeze caused confusion

“While the memo says the funding pause does not include assistance ‘provided directly to individuals,’ it does not clarify whether that includes money sent first to institutions, states or organizations and then provided to students,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
Most federal financial aid programs are considered Title IV funds “labeled for individual students” and so would not be affected by the pause, McCarthy said, but all other aid outside Title IV is unclear. “We are also researching the impact on campus-based aid programs since they are funded differently,” she said.
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“When you have programs that are serving 20 million students, there are a lot of questions, understandably,” said Jonathan Fansmith, a senior vice president at the American Council on Education. “It is really, really damaging for students and institutions to have this level of uncertainty.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called on the Trump administration to rescind the memo.
“This is bad public policy, and it will have a direct impact on the funds that support students and research,” he said. “The longer this goes on, the greater the damage will be.” More

The Social Security Fairness Act will provide benefit increases to more than 3 million individuals.
But it’s uncertain when they will see that money.
Here’s what the agency says affected beneficiaries should do in the meantime.

Maskot | Getty Images

More than 3.2 million people will see increased Social Security benefits, under a new law.
However, individuals who are affected may have to wait more than a year before they see the extra money that’s due to them from the Social Security Fairness Act, the Social Security Administration said in an update on its website.

“Though SSA is helping some affected beneficiaries now, under SSA’s current budget, SSA expects that it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits,” the agency states.
The Social Security Fairness Act eliminates two provisions — known as the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset — that previously reduced Social Security benefits for certain beneficiaries who also had pension income provided from employment where they did not contribute Social Security payroll taxes.
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Those provisions reduced benefits for certain workers including state teachers, firefighters and police officers; federal employees who are covered by the Civil Service Retirement System; and individuals who worked under a foreign social security system.
The law affects benefits paid after December 2023. Consequently, affected beneficiaries will receive increases to their monthly benefit checks, as well as retroactive lump sum payments for benefits payable for January 2024 and after.

The benefit increases “may vary greatly,” depending on an individual’s type of Social Security benefits and the amount of pension income they receive, according to the Social Security Administration.
“Some people’s benefits will increase very little while others may be eligible for over $1,000 more each month,” the agency states.

The Social Security Administration said it cannot yet provide an estimated timeline for when the benefit adjustments will happen.
In the meantime, the agency is advising beneficiaries to update their mailing address and bank direct deposit information, if necessary. In addition, noncovered pension recipients may now want to apply for benefits, if they are newly eligible following the enacted changes.

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The 2025 tax season opened for individual filers on Jan. 27.
This season, many qualify for free filing options, such as Direct File, IRS Free File or Volunteer Tax Assistance.
Those affected by natural disasters, such as California wildfire victims, may have extensions to file and pay.

Rockaa | E+ | Getty Images

Many taxpayers qualify for free filing options 

If you’re eager to file your taxes for free, there are several options for your 2024 filing, according to financial experts.
This season, more than 30 million taxpayers may be eligible for Direct File, the IRS’ free tax filing program, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. 

Direct File has expanded to 25 states and “will cover more tax situations than last year,” former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told reporters during a press call in early January.

Another option, IRS Free File, offers free guided tax prep software if your adjusted gross income, or AGI, was $84,000 or less in 2024.
An estimated 70% of taxpayers qualify for IRS Free File, but only a fraction of eligible filers use it, according to Tim Hugo, executive director of the Free File Alliance.
Many filers also qualify for more guidance via Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, a free IRS-run program. You’re generally eligible with an AGI of $67,000 or less.

Tax relief for natural disaster victims

While the federal tax deadline is April 15 for most filers, some tax filers, including California wildfire victims, have extensions to file returns and pay taxes owed. The IRS provides a detailed breakdown of IRS tax relief by date.
Congress in December also extended tax relief for certain victims affected by federally declared natural disasters from 2020 to early 2025. As a result, some filers could qualify for a bigger tax break for losses. 

Missing forms could delay your return 

While it may be tempting to file your return quickly, it is important to gather the necessary tax forms first, according to certified public accountant Brian Long, senior tax advisor at Wealth Enhancement in Minneapolis. Otherwise, the IRS systems could flag your return for missing or inaccurate information, which could delay processing.
However, you can use your “prior-year tax return as a checklist” for accuracy, Long added.
While many tax forms arrive in January, others may come between mid-February and March or later, experts say. More

Retail investors put more than $562 million into Nvidia shares on a net basis on Monday amid the chipmaker’s historic sell-off, according to Vanda Research.
That marked a record for net inflows into Nvidia, showing everyday investors bought the dip while institutions dumped shares.

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Retail investors rushed into Nvidia on Monday, signaling Main Street support for the chipmaker despite the emergence of an artificial intelligence model from China that battered its shares and caused a historic, $600 billion loss in market value.
Everyday traders bought more than $562 million worth of Nvidia shares on balance Monday, according to data from Vanda Research that subtracts total outflows from inflows. That marked a record for daily net inflows into Nvidia as mom-and-pop investors bucked their institutional counterparts, who dumped the stock en masse.

The buy-in from individuals came as Nvidia suffered its biggest one-day loss, tumbling around 17%, since the onset of the Covid pandemic in March 2020.
Monday’s plunge came in the wake of news that an AI model from Chinese startup DeepSeek scored high performance marks more cheaply and in far less time than Western counterparts.
The development raised doubts about the U.S. strategy of spending huge sums on AI and the data centers they require, just as President Donald Trump last week announced a multi-billion dollar AI project called Stargate. The sudden rise of DeepSeek also rang alarm bells that America may not lead in AI technology, offering chilling reminders of what some described as a “Sputnik moment” at the dawn of the Space Race.
Nvidia told CNBC on Monday that DeepSeek’s model was an “excellent AI advancement.” DeepSeek’s offering reportedly outperformed the best models of OpenAI and other U.S. competitors, further stoking concerns about the status of the U.S. in AI.
For their part, however, individual investors were unfazed. Data from Vanda shows the chipmaker was the most-purchased security by average investors on net in 2024 — surpassing even the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500.

Arrows pointing outwards

One of the buyers on Monday was Nirav Patel. The technology manager said he spent hours testing DeepSeek’s model and concluded that, while development costs have come down, more chips will be needed to handle the increase in demand that should accompany growing affordability.
“In my opinion, you will see much higher adoption of reasoning AI models,” Patel said. “With adoption, you need more compute, and so you’ll need more Nvidia chips basically.”
The show of support from small-scale traders is the latest example of retail investors diverging from monolithic Wall Street, as happened during the meme stock craze that captivated U.S. markets during the pandemic. The difference now being that individuals can’t swing the price of Nvidia, with a market value Tuesday near $3 trillion, the way they could small-cap stocks such as video game retailer GameStop or movie theater chain AMC four years ago.
Despite the contrast in size, there were similar overtones on Monday, however. Nvidia was the most-mentioned stock on the popular WallStreetBets Reddit forum over the past 24 hours, with mentions surging more than 175% as its shares plunged, according to Quiver Quantitative data as of Tuesday morning.
One Reddit user posted a photo of their Nvidia position on the WallStreetBets forum with the title “in Huang we trust,” a reference to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Another said Monday’s moves were a “classic overreaction” and “missed the bigger picture.” More

A certificate of deposit offers a guaranteed interest rate over a specified term. Consumers can get their money early but generally with a penalty.
Consumers often come out ahead by buying a long-term CD and paying an early withdrawal penalty, instead of picking a CD with a shorter term, research suggests.

Boonchai Wedmakawand | Moment | Getty Images

You may be leaving money on the table when it comes to certificates of deposit, some research suggests.
CDs have a set term, ranging from a few months to five or more years. Upon maturity, banks return the depositor’s principal plus interest.

Consumers who want their money early must generally pay a penalty, losing out on months of interest. However, paying that withdrawal penalty may be worthwhile for many savers who adopt the right strategy.
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That’s what is suggested in a recent research paper from Matthias Fleckenstein, associate professor of finance at University of Delaware, and Francis Longstaff, finance professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Rather than pick a short-term CD, consumers often get a higher return by choosing a long-term CD and paying a penalty to pull money out early, they found.
Consumers who are unaware of the strategy may get “shortchanged” by banks, Fleckenstein told CNBC.

‘The rule rather than the exception’

Here’s an example: If an investor puts $1 in a five-year CD with a 5% interest rate and cashes it out after one year with a penalty equivalent to six months of interest, they would receive about $1.03, which is slightly more than the $1.01 they would get from a one-year CD with a 1% interest rate, despite the penalty incurred for early withdrawal. 
Banks frequently price CDs this way, Fleckenstein and Longstaff wrote in their paper, published in October in the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The researchers examined weekly CD rates offered by 16,891 banks and branches — ranging from small community banks to big nationwide institutions — from January 2001 to June 2023. Rates were for accounts up to $100,000.
About 52% of CDs offered during that period had such “inconsistencies” in pricing when comparing a given term against a longer-term CD cashed in early, they found.
“It’s the rule rather than the exception,” Fleckenstein said.
“There are banks that do this all the time,” he said, and “there are some that don’t do this at all.”
At banks where this happens, the difference in returns “is not tiny,” Fleckenstein said. In fact, the pricing inconsistency is about 23 basis points, on average, over the roughly two decades they assessed, he said.
Given that disparity, the average investor who invested $50,000 could have gotten an extra $115 of interest by picking a longer-term CD and cashing it in early, their research suggests.
The average size of that pricing difference rose as interest rates began to increase during the Covid-19 pandemic, Fleckenstein said.

CDs often for ‘safety and liquidity’

Households that save in CDs are generally looking for “safety and some liquidity” for a chunk of their assets, said Winnie Sun, co-founder of Irvine, California-based Sun Group Wealth Partners and a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.
The typical CD buyer has a goal in mind, like saving for a home down payment, and wants to earn a modest interest rate without subjecting their money to much risk, Sun said.
About 6.5% of households held assets in CDs as of 2022, with an average value of about $99,000, according to the most recent Survey of Consumer Finances.
Like any investment, there are pros and cons to CDs.
For example, unlike other relative safe havens like high-yield savings accounts or money market funds, CDs offer a guaranteed return over a set period with no chance of market-based losses. In exchange, however, CDs offer less liquid access to your cash than a savings account and lower long-term returns than the stock market.

“Shop around for the best CD rate across banks, but also look within banks at whether it actually may pay off to accept a longer term but pay an early withdrawal penalty,” Fleckenstein recommended, based on his research findings.
The option may not be as prolific in the current market environment, though.
Long-term CDs typically pay a higher interest rate than shorter-term ones, Sun said. But average rates for one-year CDs are currently higher than those for five-year CDs: 1.7% versus 1.4%, respectively, according to Bankrate data as of Jan. 20.
Households can pursue other CD strategies, Sun said.
For example, instead of putting all savings into a long-term CD, consumers might put a chunk of their money into a long-term CD and with the remaining funds build a “ladder” of shorter-term CDs that mature more quickly. They can then buy more CDs if they’d like once the shorter-term ones come due. More

Constellation Energy, Vistra Corp., Talen Energy and GE Vernova tumbled as China’s DeepSeek AI lab debuted, scaring investors with a lower-cost business model.
Constellation, Vistra and GE Vernova were leading the S&P 500 this year as investors speculated on AI’s power needs.
Now, the arrival of DeepSeek is raising questions about how much power will actually be needed.

The cooling towers of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania, Oct. 30, 2024.
Danielle DeVries | CNBC

Power companies that are most exposed to the tech sector’s data center boom plunged Monday, as the debut of China’s DeepSeek open-source AI laboratory led investors to question how much energy artificial intelligence applications will actually consume.
Vistra closed nearly 30% lower, erasing its gains for 2025. Constellation Energy, Talen Energy and GE Vernova tumbled more than 20%, with the latter two stocks also giving up this year’s gains.

Before Monday’s selloff, Constellation, Vistra and GE Vernova had surged to top of the S&P 500 as investors speculated that AI data centers will boost demand for enormous amounts of electricity.
Natural gas stocks also fell steeply Monday, suggesting some investors believe the sector might get as big a boost as expected from data center demand. Producer EQT Corp. lost nearly 10% while pipeline companies Kinder Morgan and Williams Companies fell more than 8%.
DeepSeek released an AI model on Christmas Day that Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang described in an interview with CNBC last week as “earth shattering.” Scale AI provides training data for AI applications.
DeepSeek followed up last week with the release of a reasoning model named DeepSeek-R1 that competes with OpenAI’s o1 model. DeepSeek has since risen to the top of mobile app stores. Wang said DeepSeek has essentially caught up with OpenAI.
“Their model is actually the top performing, or roughly on par with the best American models,” Wang told CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin in a Jan. 23 interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has described DeepSeek as “super-compute efficient.” Bank of America analysts said in a Monday note that DeepSeek is “challenging the notion of U.S. leadership in AI and raising doubts about the high expectations for cloud capex, chip growth and power requirements.”
The tech companies have anticipated needing so much electricity to supply data centers that they have increasingly looked to nuclear power as a source of reliable, carbon-free energy.
Constellation, for example, has signed a power agreement with Microsoft to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Talen is powering an Amazon data center with electricity from the nearby Susquehanna nuclear plant.
Vistra has not signed a data center deal yet, though investors see promise in its nuclear and natural gas assets. GE Vernova has soared this year as the market believes its gas and electric grid businesses will benefit from AI demand.
The Bank of America analysts said grid investment in the U.S. and Europe is still required.
“Electrical grids in Europe and the U.S. remain under-invested and one of the critical bottlenecks in terms of meeting load growth requirements,” the analysts said.

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