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President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” includes several tax changes that are effective for 2025.
Provisions include permanent extensions of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, along with boosts for the standard deduction and child tax credit.
There are also new temporary deductions for older Americans, tips, overtime income and auto loan interest.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) (C) signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act during an enrollment ceremony with fellow Republicans in the Rayburn Room at the U.S. Capitol on July 03, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

It’s been about two weeks since President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” became law, and financial advisors and tax professionals are still digesting what the sweeping legislation means for clients.
Meanwhile, several changes are effective for 2025, which will impact tax returns filed in 2026.

While the Trump administration has been promoting “working family tax cuts,” the legislation’s impact depends on your unique situation — and some updates are complex, experts say. 
“There are just so many moving pieces,” said certified financial planner Jim Guarino, managing director at Baker Newman Noyes in Woburn, Massachusetts. He is also a certified public accountant.
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Currently, many advisors are running projections — often for multiple years — to see how the new provisions could impact taxes.
Without income planning, you could reduce, or even eliminate, various tax benefits for which you are otherwise eligible, experts say.

When it comes to tax strategy, “you never want to do anything in a silo,” Guarino said. 
Here are some of the key changes from Trump’s legislation to know for 2025, and how the updates could affect your taxes.

Trump’s 2017 tax cut extensions

The Republicans’ marquee law made permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — including lower tax brackets and higher standard deductions, among other provisions — which broadly reduced taxes for Americans.
Without the extension, most filers could have seen higher taxes in 2026, according to a 2024 report from the Tax Foundation. However, the new law enhances Trump’s 2017 cuts, with a few tax breaks that start in 2025:

The standard deduction increases from $15,000 to $15,750 (single filers) and $30,000 to $31,500 (married filing jointly).
There is also a bump for the child tax credit, with the maximum benefit going from $2,000 to $2,200 per child.

If you itemize tax breaks, there is also a temporary higher cap on the state and local tax deduction, or SALT. For 2025, the SALT deduction limit is $40,000, up from $10,000.
The higher SALT benefit phases out, or reduces, for incomes between $500,000 to $600,000, which can create an artificially higher tax rate of 45.5% that some experts are calling a “SALT torpedo.”
This creates a “sweet spot” for the SALT deduction between $200,000 and $500,000 of earnings, based on other provisions in the bill, CPA John McCarthy wrote in a blog post this week.  

Trump’s new tax changes for 2025

Trump’s tax and spending bill also introduced some temporary tax breaks, which are effective for 2025. Some of these were floated during his 2024 presidential campaign.These provisions include a $6,000 “bonus” deduction for certain older Americans ages 65 and over, which phases out over $75,000 for single filers or $150,000 for married couples filing jointly. 
There are also new deductions for tip income, overtime earnings and car loan interest, with varying eligibility requirements.
This chart shows a breakdown of some of the key individual provisions that are effective for 2025 compared to previous law.

Premium tax credit ‘subsidy cliff’ returns 

During the pandemic, Congress boosted the premium tax credit through 2025, which made Marketplace health insurance more affordable.  
But Trump’s legislation didn’t extend the enhanced tax break, which could raise Affordable Care Act premiums for more than 22 million enrollees if no action is taken, according to KFF, a health policy organization.
That could impact enrollees when choosing ACA health plans this fall, according to Tommy Lucas, a CFP and enrolled agent at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida.

Starting in 2026, enrollees need to prepare for the ACA subsidy cliff, where enrollees lose the premium tax credit when income exceeds the earnings thresholds by even $1, he said.   
Currently, most ACA enrollees receive at least part of the premium tax credit. However, the subsidy cliff means enrollees lose the benefit once earnings exceed 400% of the federal poverty limit. For 2025, that threshold was $103,280 for a family of three, according to The Peterson Center on Healthcare, a nonprofit for healthcare policy, and KFF. More

Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Company: Global Payments Inc (GPN)
Business: Global Payments is a payments technology company delivering software and services to its customers globally. Through its Merchant Solutions segment, it provides payments technology and software solutions globally to small-and-medium sized businesses and select mid-market and enterprise customers. It offers authorization, settlement and funding services, customer support, chargeback resolution, reconciliation and dispute management services, terminal rental, sales and deployment, payment security services, consolidated billing and reporting. It offers an array of business management software solutions that streamline business operations to customers in numerous vertical markets. Through its Issuer Solutions segment, it provides financial institutions and retailers technologies to manage their card portfolios. It provides flexible commercial payments, accounts payable and electronic payment alternative solutions that support B2B payment processes for businesses and governments.
Stock Market Value: $19.98B ($81.93 per share)

Stock chart icon

Global Payments in 2025

Activist: Elliott Investment Management

Ownership: n/a
Average Cost: n/a
Activist Commentary: Elliott is a very successful and astute activist investor. The firm’s team includes analysts from leading tech private equity firms, engineers, operating partners – former technology CEOs and COOs. When evaluating an investment, the firm also hires specialty and general management consultants, expert cost analysts and industry specialists. Elliott often watches companies for many years before investing and has an extensive stable of impressive board candidates. The firm has historically focused on strategic activism in the technology sector and has been very successful with that strategy. However, over the past several years its activism group has grown, and Elliott has been doing a lot more governance-oriented activism and creating value from a board level at a much larger breadth of companies.
What’s happening
Elliott has taken a position in Global Payments.
Behind the scenes
Global Payments is a leading provider of payment processing and software solutions, focused on serving small and medium-sized merchants and select mid-market and enterprise customers. The company operates through two segments: Merchant Solutions and Issuer Solutions. Merchant Solutions, contributing about three-fourths of total sales, provides payment solutions to enable customers to accept card, check, and digital payments, offering authorization, settlement, funding and other services. Simply put, Global Payments, as a merchant acquirer, acts as a middleman between the merchant and card network to authorize and facilitate transactions. Through its Issuer Solutions segment, Global Payments provides comprehensive commerce solutions supporting the payment ecosystem for issuers through offerings like core processing, enterprise tokenization and more. This segment was formed in 2019 following the combination of Global Payments and Total System Services (“TSYS”) in an all-stock merger of equals to create a leading payments company with a presence in both merchant acquiring and issuer services.

Peaking in 2021 at roughly $220 per share and an enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EV/EBITDA) multiple of about 25-times, the company today trades around $80 per share and at a high single-digit multiple. The company managed to tread water during the pandemic despite the global slowdown in transactions and its focus on small and medium enterprises. However, sales growth has slowed significantly since 2020, now below the core acquiring market’s high-single growth rate, implying market share loss to disruptors like Stripe, Fiserv’s Clover, Shopify and others. That is all very interesting, but not what this activist campaign is about. This is about a company that made a poorly received “bet the farm” acquisition and is now at an inflection point that will determine its future.
On April 17, Global Payments announced that it had agreed to acquire Worldpay from Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) and private equity firm GTCR. The three-way cash-and-share acquisition also involved Global Payments divesting its Issuer Solutions (previously known as TSYS) business to FIS in a deal which valued Worldpay at $24.25 billion and Issuer Solutions at $13.5 billion. Global Payments’ shares fell 17% following the announcement for many good reasons: (i) this acquisition was announced after management’s commitments at their 2024 Investor Day to pursue increased shareholder returns, divestments, and, at most, small bolt-on acquisitions, (ii) management has a poor track record of integrating (or failing to integrate) acquisitions such as TSYS and AdvancedMD, and (iii) the company paid too much for Worldpay – acquiring it at 10.5-times EBITDA versus the 6.5-times multiple Global Payments trades at. Moreover, investors have grown skeptical of deals of this sort in the payments space after two of the three largest deals made in a 2019 wave of consolidation have been unwound (Global Payments – TSYS and FIS – Worldpay).
But the good news is that failure is priced in. Management thinks the Worldpay transaction makes strategic sense for Global Payments, simplifying its business model into a pure-play commerce solutions provider, and that it will provide $600 million in annual cost synergies and $200 million in revenue synergies. The market is not believing this or has little faith that management can achieve these synergies. From where the stock trades today, if management can come anywhere close to achieving these synergies and executing on this transaction, it will be a nice return for stockholders. What this company needs right now is help in execution and enhanced credibility, and Elliott can provide both.
There are companies that could use shareholder representation on the board and companies that need it. Global Payments is much closer to the latter. A reconstituted board that holds management accountable, commits to an M&A moratorium and adds members with experience integrating large acquisitions will almost immediately restore investor confidence in the company. Thereafter, the board can start to de-lever and possibly buy back shares at the appropriate time if Global Payments’ stock is still significantly undervalued. We would also expect the board to do the most important thing boards do – oversee and evaluate senior management, but we do not think there would be any material management changes ahead of such a large acquisition like this.
Given the almost universal opposition to the Worldpay acquisition and the low investor confidence in management, we would expect that Elliott will be able to walk onto this board with any reasonable slate. In a contested situation for the 10-person unitary board using a universal proxy card, Global Payments would almost certainly face significant defeat. Elliott recently won two of four seats at Phillips 66 in a proxy fight with a much higher degree of difficulty. The fund made its reputation as an activist almost two decades ago as primarily a strategic activist in technology companies, making great returns getting companies sold or participating in the acquisition. However, Elliott has since evolved into a much broader and comprehensive activist in strategy, sector and geography. Today, the firm often does its best activism from the board level. We believe that a reconstituted board that includes an Elliott representative will restore investor confidence and increase the probability of a successful integration of Worldpay.
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholder activism, and the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D Activist Fund, a mutual fund that invests in a portfolio of activist 13D investments. More

Many student loan borrowers could see their monthly bills more than double now that the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan is defunct.
Here’s what to know about your options.

Natalia Lebedinskaia | Moment | Getty Images

As a Biden-era relief measure for federal student loan borrowers comes to an end, some people could see their bills more than double.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that the so-called SAVE interest-free payment pause will expire on Aug. 1, and that enrollees’ education debts will begin to grow again if they don’t make payments large enough to cover the accruing interest.

The Biden administration had moved people who enrolled in its SAVE plan into forbearance — a period during which federal student loan borrowers are excused from making payments — while the legal challenges against its program played out. The SAVE, or Saving on a Valuable Education, plan, is now essentially defunct.

While borrowers can remain in the SAVE forbearance for the time being, they’ll face interest charges again starting next month if they do.
But those who look to move into another repayment plan will likely face a much larger monthly bill.
“SAVE was incredibly generous,” said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, a trade group for federal student loan servicers.

The ‘best plan’ for former SAVE borrowers

End of SAVE means bigger student loan bills

But borrowers could see their monthly bills double under IBR, compared with on SAVE.
That’s because the SAVE plan calculated payments based on 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income. IBR takes 10% — and that share rises to 15% for certain borrowers with older loans.

Many federal student loan borrowers simply won’t be able to afford the payments under IBR, said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York City.
“In severe cases, it could result in people being forced to move, or they will just resign themselves to default and involuntary collections,” Nierman said.
In the new legislation passed by Republicans, borrowers will have access to another income-driven repayment plan, called the “Repayment Assistance Plan,” or RAP, by July 1, 2026.
However, it’s uncertain whether a borrower will have a lower monthly payment on RAP than IBR.
“It’s going to range dramatically based on your income,” Buchanan said.
There are tools available online to help you determine how much your monthly bill would be under different plans.
Carolina Rodriguez, director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program, said she’s working with one partner in a married couple, both with federal student loans, who are facing a nearly $4,000 monthly combined student loan payment under IBR.
“My client said that these payments would mean no extracurricular activities and other opportunities for his children, which might set them back in comparison to their peers,” Rodriguez said.
Under SAVE, the family’s student loan bill would have been around $2,400, she said. 

Borrowers who can’t afford to make a monthly payment on their student debt under the current repayment options can pursue deferment and forbearance options.
Those who’ve taken out loans before July 1, 2027, will maintain access, for example, to the economic hardship deferment and the unemployment deferment, under the new law. More

Amid a fresh set of attacks on Fed Chair Jerome Powell came reports that President Donald Trump might fire the central banker.
Increasingly, Trump is frustrated with Powell for not lowering interest rates already.
Consumers hoping for lower rates as well may be better off if the Fed sticks to its current plan, experts say.

Ahead of the next Federal Reserve meeting later this month, tensions between the White House and the central bank have reached a fever pitch.
On Wednesday, a senior White House official told CNBC and other news outlets that President Donald Trump was likely to soon fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Trump later denied those reports, although he said he wouldn’t “rule out anything.”
Trump has repeatedly said the central bank should have slashed its key benchmark by now. On Friday, Trump once again called Powell “too late” for not lowering interest rates already.
“‘Too Late,’ and the Fed, are choking out the housing market with their high rate, making it difficult for people, especially the young, to buy a house,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
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The president has argued that maintaining a federal funds rate that is too high makes it harder for businesses and consumers to borrow and puts the U.S. at an economic disadvantage to countries with lower rates. The Fed’s benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a trickle-down effect on almost all of the borrowing and savings rates Americans see every day.

Fixed mortgage rates, specifically, don’t directly track the Fed, but are largely tied to Treasury yields and the U.S. economy. As concerns over tariffs and the broader economy drive Treasury yields higher, mortgage rates are following suit.
Powell said July 1 that the Fed likely would have cut rates by now, but that it has held off due to the uncertainty and inflation risks posed by Trump’s trade policies.
As of the latest government reading, consumer prices edged higher in June as tariff-induced inflation started to pick up.

Since December, the federal funds rate has been in a target range of between 4.25%-4.5%. Futures market pricing is implying almost no chance of an interest rate cut when the Fed meets at the end of July, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge.
Even as the pressure to slash rates ramps up significantly, Powell has repeatedly said that politics will not play a role in the Fed’s policy decisions.

‘A reflection of the resilience of the economy’

As it stands, market pricing indicates the Fed is unlikely to consider further interest rate cuts until at least September. Once the fed funds rate comes down, consumers could see their borrowing costs start to fall as well.
“The fact that the Fed has been on the sidelines since December, leaving interest rates unchanged, is a reflection of the resilience of the economy and uncertainty about the path of inflation,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.
“At the point where the Fed does eventually cut interest rates, we’d much rather that be due to easing inflation pressures than an economy that is rolling over,” McBride said.
For now, “inflation is still higher than desired,” he added.

The risk is that reducing rates too soon could halt or reverse progress on tamping down inflation, according to Mark Higgins, senior vice president at Index Fund Advisors and author of “Investing in U.S. Financial History: Understanding the Past to Forecast the Future.”
“Now you have a situation where Trump is willing to pressure the Fed to lower rates while they have less flexibility to do that,” he recently told CNBC. “They have to keep rates higher for longer to extinguish inflation.”
The White House has said that tariffs will not cause runaway inflation, with the expectation that foreign producers would absorb much of the costs themselves. However, many economists expect that the full impact from tariffs on pricing could pick up in the second half of the year as surplus inventories draw down.
For consumers waiting for borrowing costs to ease, they may be better off if the Fed sticks to its current monetary policy, according to Higgins.
“There’s this temptation to move fast and that is counterproductive,” Higgins said. “If the Fed prematurely lowers rates, it’s going to allow inflation to reignite and then they will have to raise rates again.”
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President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” has a section called “no tax on tips.”
But the provision doesn’t eliminate tax on tips, which are still subject to payroll levies.
Instead, it’s a deduction worth up to $25,000 for qualified workers — and it phases out, or gets reduced, once modified adjusted gross income exceeds $150,000.
The tax break is available from 2025 to 2028, but questions remain about eligibility.

President Donald Trump arrives to speak on his plan to end tax on tips in Las Vegas, Jan. 25, 2025.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” includes a section called “no tax on tips” — an idea that both Republicans and Democrats floated during the 2024 campaign.Now that the provision has been enacted, questions remain about how the tax break works and who qualifies.
Despite its name, “no tax on tips” doesn’t eliminate tax on tips, which are still subject to payroll and state taxes. Instead, it’s a deduction worth up to $25,000. The tax break is available from 2025 through 2028. It phases out, or gets reduced, once modified adjusted gross income exceeds $150,000.

However, the IRS needs to clarify which occupations qualify, which is expected to come in early October, according to the agency. 
Meanwhile, “we’re looking at a crystal ball” for guidance, said Larry Gray, a Missouri-based certified public accountant who serves as IRS liaison for the National Association of Tax Professionals.
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In 2023, there were roughly 4 million U.S. workers in tipped occupations, representing 2.5% of all employment, according to estimates from The Budget Lab at Yale University.
The cohort of workers who qualify for the tax break is even smaller — actors, musicians and singers, directors and playwrights — are included among the professions that are already prohibited under the legislation’s text.

Here’s a breakdown of what to know about Trump’s tip deduction. 

What counts as ‘qualified tips’

As written, “qualified tips” are cash tips an employee earns. This includes tips a customer offers in cash or that are added to a credit card charge, as well as payouts under a tip-sharing arrangement.
Yet, the law also says that the tip must be paid voluntarily and determined by the customer or payor, which can put other forms of gratuities or mandatory service charges in question.
“It’s an entirely voluntary transaction,” said Alex Muresianu, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on tax policy research. 

For example, the definition may exclude mandatory service fees, such as an automatic gratuity a restaurant might tack on for a large dining party. 
“Based on the plain text of the law, it’s hard to argue that that’s something that’s given voluntarily,” said Ben Henry-Moreland, a certified financial planner with advisor platform Kitces.com, who analyzed the legislation.

Tips must be ‘properly reported’

To qualify for the deduction, tips must be “properly reported,” according to Melanie Lauridsen, vice president of tax policy and advocacy at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
That means employers must report the worker’s tips on information returns — such as Form W-2 or 1099 — with a copy going to the employee and the IRS.
However, Trump’s legislation also increased the income thresholds for certain information returns. That could raise eligibility questions for tipped workers who don’t get a form.
For example, Form 1099-K reports business transactions from apps, such as PayPal or Venmo, along with gig economy platforms, such as Uber or Lyft. For 2025, the 1099-K reporting threshold returns to $20,000 and 200 transactions. Previously, the threshold was $2,500 for 2025.
Starting in 2026, the threshold for 1099-NEC, which reports contract income, jumps from $600 to $2,000.
However, there is also uncertainty about whether workers fully disclose cash tips to their employer and the IRS.
“The elephant in the room around this whole ‘no tax on tips’ provision is, so many tips go unreported to begin with,” said Henry-Moreland. More

President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” includes a new savings plan for children with a one-time deposit of $1,000 from the federal government for newborns.
So-called “Trump accounts” will function like an individual retirement account.
But beyond the initial seed money, tax experts say the benefits fall short of other savings plans already out there.

President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending package includes a new child savings account with a one-time deposit of $1,000 from the federal government for newborns.
The premise is simple: So-called “Trump accounts,” a type of tax-advantaged savings account, will be available to all children who are U.S. citizens starting in July 2026. 

Beyond that, the rules get somewhat confusing, tax experts say.

Funding a Trump account

Under Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” children born in 2025 through 2028 will also receive a $1,000 deposit each in their Trump account, funded by the Department of the Treasury. There are no income requirements.
Parents and others will be able to contribute up to $5,000 a year in after-tax dollars up until the year before the beneficiary turns 18. Employers could also contribute up to $2,500 to an employee’s account, which wouldn’t be counted as income to the recipient. Both caps will be indexed to inflation.
The balance will be invested in a low-cost fund that tracks a U.S. stock index.
From a tax perspective, the accounts would function like an individual retirement account. Earnings grow tax-deferred, and qualified withdrawals are generally taxed as ordinary income.

Tapping the money in a Trump account

Here’s where it starts to get tricky. Trump account funds may not be easily accessed for decades.
Money in a Trump account generally can’t be withdrawn before the beneficiary turns 18. After that, “it turns into a traditional IRA,” said Ben Henry-Moreland, a certified financial planner with advisor platform Kitces.com.
Because the final version adheres to IRA rules, savers would pay a 10% tax penalty on withdrawals before age 59½.
In earlier versions of both the House and Senate bill, withdrawals could begin at age 18, at which point account holders would have been able to tap the funds for education expenses or college alternative programs, the down payment on a first home or as capital to start a small business.
“The IRA distribution rules requiring owners to wait until they reach age 59½ to make penalty-free withdrawals would presumably still be in effect,” according to Henry-Moreland’s analysis of the legislation.
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There are ways to avoid the IRA early withdrawal penalty for those under 59½, including if the funds are used to pay for qualifying higher-education expenses or first-time home purchases, as well as for emergency expenses, among certain other exceptions.
However, since Trump accounts include a mix of after-tax contributions, initial seed money and investment income, distributions are still partially taxable. That means there are fewer tax planning opportunities compared with traditional and Roth IRAs, where there’s either a tax break on contributions or on withdrawals. Trump accounts have neither.
“It seems like this is a good idea, complicated with unfavorable tax characteristics,” said Zach Teutsch, a managing partner at Values Added Financial in Washington, D.C.
For example, “in a Roth account, you don’t have to pay tax on the income or the gains, and that just seems better,” he said.
Experts say that additional details on the tax treatment of distributions will need further clarification from the Treasury Department or Internal Revenue Service.

‘A retirement account for children’

Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images

“This is really a retirement account for children,” Henry-Moreland said. “It’s a way to put money in an account at a young age that gets saved but doesn’t have the earned income requirement that a traditional or Roth IRA would have.”
But because Trump accounts are also restricted to stock funds, that means that savers won’t be able to benefit from rebalancing with less risky fixed-income options, such as bonds or cash.
After age 18, the “eligible investment” rules may no longer apply and the beneficiary can invest the funds in any way allowed within an IRA, according to Henry-Moreland.

Republican lawmakers have said Trump accounts will introduce more Americans to wealth-building opportunities, particularly by investing in the stock market.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who spearheaded the effort, said in a May “Squawk Box” interview that the accounts give children “the miracle of the compound growth, the ability to accumulate wealth, which is transformational.”

‘A nice big check’

A $1,000 initial deposit boosts the attractiveness of these accounts, too.
Although some states, including Connecticut and Colorado, already offer a type of “baby bonds” program for parents, most tax professionals agree that the biggest benefit of Trump accounts is the seed money for children born from Jan. 1, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2028.
“There’s going to be a nice big check coming into the account,” said Evan Morgan, a certified public accountant and tax principal at Kaufman Rossin, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Just as advisors recommend deferring enough into a 401(k) plan to benefit from your employer’s full 401(k) matching contribution, there is no reason to pass this up.
“If the government is giving you free money, you should take it,” said Teutsch.

An alternative to a Trump account

Otherwise, most experts say a 529 college savings plan is a better alternative for families because of the higher contribution limits and tax advantages. 
This year, individuals can gift up to $19,000 to a 529, or up to $38,000 if you’re married and file taxes jointly, per child without those contributions counting toward your lifetime gift tax exemption.
Generally, 529 plans offer age-based portfolios, which start off with more equity exposure early on in a child’s life and then become more conservative as college nears. By the time high school graduation is around the corner, families likely have very little invested in stocks and more in investments like bonds and cash. That can help blunt their losses.
“At least in a 529 plan you have more flexibility on what to invest in,” Morgan said.

Although there are limitations on what 529 funds can be used for beyond higher-education costs, restrictions have loosened in recent years to include continuing education classes, apprenticeship programs and student loan payments. Withdrawals from 529s for nonqualified expenses can be subject to tax and a 10% penalty.
Also, as of 2024, families can roll over unused 529 funds to the account beneficiary’s Roth IRA without triggering income taxes or penalties, so long as they meet certain requirements.
“If you were looking at this compared to a 529, I would almost pick a 529 every time,” Henry-Moreland said.

In some cases, wealthier families could benefit from fully funding a 529 plan and then putting additional funds in a Trump account, as a way to get a jump start on retirement savings without having to satisfy the earned income component of a traditional IRA or Roth, according to Teutsch.
However, “most Americans don’t even put one dollar into 529 plans, let alone maxing them out,” he said.
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The Trump administration’s overhaul to the federal student loan system may leave borrowers without an affordable option to repay their loans, advocates say.
The SAVE, or Saving on a Valuable Education, plan, touted by the Biden administration as the most affordable repayment program ever, is now defunct.
President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” phases out several other income-driven repayment plans, which were aimed at making payments manageable for student loan holders.

Nathan Howard | Reuters

As the Trump administration overhauls the federal student loan repayment system, borrowers may soon find it difficult to keep up with their monthly payments, consumer advocates said.
The SAVE, or Saving on a Valuable Education, plan, touted by the Biden administration as the most affordable repayment program ever, is now defunct. President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” phases out several other income-driven repayment plans, which were aimed at making payments manageable for student loan holders.

“In many instances, borrowers will be left with no affordable options, increasing the risk of default,” said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York City.
Here are the biggest changes to federal student loan repayment under Trump, so far.

SAVE plan is defunct

The Biden administration rolled out the SAVE plan in summer 2023. The repayment plan’s terms were the most generous to date; under the program’s rules, many borrowers’ monthly bills would have dropped by as much as half.
But just as many of the plan’s benefits were going into effect, Republican-led legal challenges blocked the program. Unlike the Biden administration, Trump officials have not fought in the courts to preserve SAVE, and recently Congress repealed the plan altogether.
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The Education Department announced on July 9 that the interest-free payment pause that the Biden administration had enrolled SAVE borrowers in during the legal challenges will expire on Aug.1.
Ellen Keast, deputy press secretary at the Education Department, said the agency was obligated to end the interest-free pause under recent court orders.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement that borrowers in SAVE should “quickly transition to a legally compliant repayment plan — such as the Income-Based Repayment Plan.”
But under the other existing repayment plans, borrowers will see their bills “jump up unexpectedly,” said Malissa Giles, a consumer bankruptcy attorney in Virginia.
“I cannot imagine the stress that will be put on folks,” she said.
Higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz said, “We can expect payments under IBR to be more than double payments under SAVE.”

Repayment plan options have dwindled

Under Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” borrowers who take out federal student loans after July 1, 2026, will have just two repayment plans to choose from, compared with roughly a dozen options now. Existing borrowers will maintain access to other repayment options.
New student loan borrowers could enroll in either a standard repayment plan with fixed payments or a single income-based repayment plan: the “Repayment Assistance Plan,” or RAP.

Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative policy research organization American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a recent blog post that “scheduled monthly payments under RAP are significantly higher than those under the Biden administration’s SAVE plan for borrowers of the same income levels.”
Cooper provided an example of a borrower who earns $80,000 per year: their monthly bill under RAP will be $533, whereas it would be $179 with SAVE, he wrote.
“The student borrowers for whom the SAVE plan was the only affordable option will be severely impacted by these changes,” said Nierman, of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program.
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The “Base App,” which replaces Coinbase Wallet, will combine wallet, trading and payment functions as well as social media, messaging and support for mini apps.
The intent is to expand Coinbase’s reach to a new subset of consumers who aren’t necessarily interested in buying or trading crypto but could still reap the benefits of the so-called on chain economy.
The Base App will run on Coinbase’s in-house built public blockchain, also called Base. In-app transactions will be powered by USDC.

Dominika Zarzycka | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Coinbase unveiled Wednesday an “everything app” designed to bring more people into the crypto economy.
The “Base App,” which replaces Coinbase Wallet, will combine wallet, trading and payment functions as well as social media, messaging and support for mini apps – all running on the company’s homegrown public blockchain network Base, which is built on Ethereum.

So-called super apps like WeChat and Alipay – which bundle several different services and functionalities into a single mobile app – have long been viewed as the holy grail of fintech by the industry. They’re central to everyday life in China but haven’t been successfully replicated in the West. Meta Platforms and X have made attempts to realize that vision, integrating payments, messaging and social content, among other things.
For Coinbase, the intent is to expand its reach to a new subset of consumers who aren’t necessarily interested in buying or trading crypto, the company’s core business. Over-reliance on that revenue stream has been a sticking point for the company, and some analysts view the Base blockchain as a way for it to drive utility in crypto beyond speculative trading.
As part of the Base App launch, Coinbase also rolled out two key functions meant to help power it: an identity verification system called Base Account and an express checkout system for payments with the Circle-issued USDC stablecoin, called Base Pay.
Base Pay is a one-click checkout feature for USDC payments across the web, developed with Shopify. At the end of the year, Coinbase plans to bring Base Pay to brick-and-mortar stores with tap-to-pay support. Alex Danco, product manager at Shopify, said at Coinbase’s unveiling event that the function has been turned on for tens of thousands of its merchants this week, and will roll out to every merchant by the end of the year. Shopify will also offer 1% cash back in the U.S. for users who pay with USDC on Base later this year, he said.
Until now, enthusiasm around the Base network has been confined to builders and developers keen to use the technology. In perhaps the highest profile example, JPMorgan said last month that it’s launching a so-called deposit token on the Base blockchain.

Base is often touted for its ability to settle a payment in less than a second for less than a cent, which its fans expect will help the network grow in a way other crypto-based payments efforts haven’t.
Now, Coinbase hopes to tap into an opportunity to settle payments on the Base network that go beyond trading and payments. With the introduction of the everything app, the company is emphasizing the opportunity for a new economic model for content creators in particular – one that might give them more direct and diverse monetization options for their content as well as more control over their identity and data.
Coinbase will fund creator rewards and waive USDC transaction fees within chats in the app as part of the effort to bring more users on chain. It is not expected to generate significant revenue right away.
The new consumer app comes as the crypto industry and Coinbase, in particular, embrace a boom in product launches and rollouts thanks to the pro-crypto policies of the Trump administration and more clearly defined crypto regulations expected from Congress — perhaps as soon as this week. Last month Coinbase launched its first credit card with American Express and Shopify rolled out USDC-powered payments through Coinbase and Stripe.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has said both have a “stretch goal” to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin in the world, a position currently held by Tether’s USDT, and that he aims to make Coinbase “the number one financial services app in the world” in the next five to 10 years.

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