With the Federal Reserve engaged in an asset purchase program designed to increase the money supply in an effort to stimulate the economy, many are starting to worry about inflation.

Inflation represents a decline in the purchasing power of your dollar. Essentially, it is a rise in prices. However, not only are many consumers starting to worry about protecting themselves against inflation, but they are also concerned about hyperinflation.

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One of the more controversial (at least in financial circles) items to come out of the budget recently proposed by the Obama Administration is a cap on retirement accounts.

The idea is to cap retirement accounts, preventing further contributions to tax-advantaged accounts. The reasoning is that, at a certain level, enough is saved up for a “reasonable” retirement and there is no more need for the tax advantage.

Presumably, instead of contributing to tax-deferred accounts, those who reached the cap would no longer be able to take advantage of the savings, and pay taxes on that income, instead of getting a tax deduction. (Of course, there are issues surrounding the fact that, eventually, taxes would have been collected on the money if it were withdrawn from a tax-deferred account down the road.)

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Many young families starting out need a little help finding affordable housing. One of the options out there is Section 8 housing.

Section 8 housing gets its name from the Housing Act of 1937, in which a program to provide rental housing assistance was started. There are a number of programs related to section 8 housing, and Housing and Urban Development oversees them. One of the most popular programs is the Housing Choice Voucher Program. With this program, tenants can choose qualified housing from participating landlords.

With section 8 housing, the government subsidizes a portion of your monthly rent payment by making payments to the landlord on your behalf.

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There has been a lot of talk lately about what’s next for the economy. With the fiscal cliff looming, and with the economy not quite recovered from the last recession, many are wondering where things might be headed next.

While there are clues about what’s next for the economy all around, there are some common indicators that pundits and professional economists alike consider as they try to predict what’s next.

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Every year, about this time, we start looking to the coming year, and what changes will be coming for our finances. Many aspects of our finances are affected by the changes put into place each year. The IRS announces tax brackets, we learn about new contribution limits on tax-advantaged retirement accounts, and we find out about other benefits, including Social Security.

The coming year, 2013, promises to be interesting on a number of levels. Changes are coming in health care as some of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act come into play, and as contribution limits — including those on IRAs for the first time in a few years — head higher. There are also quite a few changes coming to Social Security in 2013.

Here are some of the items that you can expect to be different, starting next year:
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Guess who just released inflation data for September? The Bureau of Labor Statistics!

Guess who can now calculate how much a Series I bond will be yielding once the inflation/variable portion of the interest rate is reset in November? We can!

Just to recap, the interest rate you get on a Series I bond is a calculation that takes into account the variable rate, which resets every March and November, and the fixed rate, which is set during March and November but remain fixed for the life of the bond. The calculation is pretty simple but we built this Series I bond interest rate calculator just to make it easier.

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Every year after you turn 25, you should receive a Social Security Earnings Record. Sometimes, this is referred to as your Social Security statement. Your Social Security Earnings Record contains information about how much you have made in your years of employment, and your statement also contains information about your expected benefits later on.

As with any statement, there is always the chance that errors will occur. Your Social Security statement might include mistakes related to your name, date of birth, and your earnings. You want to make sure that all of the information is accurate. If information is inaccurate, you can contact the Social Security Administration and provide the necessary documentation to correct the mistake.

If your date of birth or name is wrong, it is usually fairly simple to supply the accurate information. A birth certificate can help, as can an approved ID. If you have recently changed your name, it makes sense to double-check the accuracy of your Social Security statement.

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You might not be surprised to learn that the IRS has a fraud detection system, I suspect it’s similar to the system they use to pick which returns to audit, but you might be surprised to find that it has detected roughly two million “potentially fraudulent” tax returns last year. It’s an increase of 72% from the previous year and that doesn’t count the million (actual number is around 900,000) tax returns that were part of “Operation Mass Mail.” Operation Mass Mail was a scheme in which tax cheats submitted fraudulent returns that were automatically voided before they were processed (unfortunately, tens of thousands of those returns were actually legitimate).

It’s part of a larger story about how the IRS is underfunded and how it’s been unable to keep up with demand. Apparently, you could only get to someone on the phone after waiting for an hour and the IRS could only answer one out of every 9 calls it received from taxpayers wondering where their refunds were. It really makes you wonder if the IRS is mismanaged or if they simply don’t have enough people. Unlike other agencies, it seems like IRS is one that we’d want to fully fund since it’s responsible for collecting our revenue.