In the world of tax law, truly “free” lunches are rare. Usually, a tax break in one area requires a sacrifice in another. However, if you know where to look, the tax code contains several freebies—legal provisions that allow you to increase wealth, generate income, and gift money without the IRS taking a single penny.
Finance
5 Financial Freebies Every Investor Should Claim
A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025.
Richard Drew/APHere are five of the most powerful financial freebies available to investors today.
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1) The 0% capital gains rate
Most investors assume that selling a winning stock always triggers a tax bill. However, for those in the lower income brackets (up to $50,400 for individuals or $100,800 for married couples in 2026), the long-term capital gains tax rate is exactly 0%.
The Strategy: If you have a low-income year—perhaps due to early retirement before Social Security or required minimum distributions kick in—you can strategically sell appreciated securities without paying any federal tax. The proceeds can fund living expenses or replace the shares you just sold to capture a free stepped-up basis without having to die first.
2) The ‘Augusta Rule’ (rent your home for free)
Named after the homeowners in Georgia who rent out their houses during the Masters golf tournament, Section 280A(g) of the tax code allows you to rent out your primary residence for up to 14 days per year without having to report a single dollar of that income to the IRS.
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The Strategy: Whether you live near a major sporting event, a film set, or a popular festival, you can pocket the rental income entirely tax-free. There are no income limits on this rule, and you don’t even need to report the income on your Form 1040. For high-income earners in high-tax states like California, this is a significant freebie that bypasses both federal and state taxes.
3) The $1,000 ‘Baby Seed’ money
The newly enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act has introduced a literal cash freebie for the next generation. For every child born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, the federal government will provide a $1,000 seed deposit into a Trump Savings Account.
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The Strategy: While these accounts have long-term tax flaws, you should never turn down a government grant. Capture the $1,000 as soon as the portal opens in 2026. Let that government money compound, but pivot your own family contributions to a 529 plan for superior tax treatment.
4) The ‘Gap Year’ Roth conversion
The most valuable freebie for retirees often occurs in the window between the end of a professional salary and the start of required minimum distributions, or RMDs, and Social Security. During these gap years, your taxable income may drop to its lowest level in decades.
The Strategy: Use this low-income window to perform Roth conversions at a 0% or 10% effective tax rate. By filling up these lower tax brackets now, you are effectively prepaying your future tax bill at a massive discount. You eliminate future RMD pressure and ensure that every dollar of future growth in that Roth account is shielded from the IRS forever. It is one of the few times the tax code allows you to move money into a tax-free bucket at little or no cost. In most cases, this is a better deal than recognizing capital gains at 0%.
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5) The qualified charitable distribution
Is a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD, truly free? If you are charitably inclined and over age 70½, the answer is a resounding yes. Normally, taking money out of a traditional IRA is a taxable event. However, a QCD allows you to send up to $111,000 each year directly to a charity (in 2026).
The Strategy: The money goes from your IRA to the charity without ever touching your bank account, meaning it is never counted as taxable income. This is a freebie because a lower adjusted gross income can help you avoid higher Medicare premiums, and it reduces the amount of your Social Security that is subject to tax. You are effectively spending your IRA money on your philanthropic goals while keeping the IRS entirely out of the transaction.
Summary for Investors
The IRS rarely hands out gifts, but these five provisions are as close as it gets. Whether it is capturing $1,000 for a newborn or leveraging your gap years for a low-cost Roth conversion, the key is proactive timing.
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This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.
Sheryl Rowling, CPA, is an editorial director, financial advisor for Morningstar.
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$1,000 Trump Accounts: Focus on the Financial Benefits, Not the Branding
https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/1000-trump-accounts-focus-financial-benefits-not-branding
Still Working in Retirement? Watch Out for These Social Security and Medicare Tax Traps
https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/still-working-retirement-watch-out-these-social-security-medicare-tax-traps
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How Much Should You Allocate to Safer Assets?
https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/how-much-should-you-allocate-safer-assets
Finance
LUMIQ Raises Strategic Funding to Become the AI Decision Layer for Financial Services
While most AI in financial services remains advisory, LUMIQ has built the layer that owns the decision — autonomous, auditable AI agents making regulated calls in production at leading banks, insurers, and capital markets firms. Today, LUMIQ serves clients across India, the United States, and Southeast Asia — leading institutions across insurance, banking, and capital markets.
NEW YORK and SINGAPORE, June 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — LUMIQ, an AI-native financial services company, today announced a strategic funding round to scale auto-decisioning for financial institutions across the United States and Southeast Asia. The round was led by Bajaj Finserv, one of India’s largest and most diversified financial services groups, with participation from existing investor Info Edge Ventures.
Right now, thousands of customers are waiting for a policy to be issued, a loan to be disbursed, a claim to be adjudicated, because somewhere an FSI employee is drowning in decisions, held back by the risk of getting it wrong. Today, when e-commerce delivers the same day, banks and insurers still decide in weeks. We built LiteCone to take that burden: AI decides the routine cases, completely and accountably, so humans spend their judgment on the one case that actually needs it. This round lets us bring that to every financial institution in the markets that matter most.
Shoaib Mohammad, Co-founder and CEO, LUMIQ
From AI that assists to AI that decides
For decades, financial institutions have bought technology that made their people faster — faster data, faster scoring, faster copilots. The decision still landed on a human. LUMIQ is changing that. Through its LiteCone platform, the company deploys AI agents that read the file, apply the institution’s own guidelines, and reach the decision end to end — escalating only the cases that genuinely require human judgment. The output is not a recommendation. It is a decision, with full reasoning attached, cross-referenced to policy, and defensible under audit.
The results in production speak clearly. At a leading life insurer, LUMIQ’s LEO agent decides 75–80% of underwriting cases with zero human touch, reduced policy issuance cost by roughly 25%, and compressed turnaround from days to under eight minutes — running 24×7 with complete auditability. Across its client base spanning insurance, banking, and capital markets in India, the US, and Southeast Asia, LUMIQ now processes millions of decisions annually.
LiteCone turns a real financial-services role into a working AI agent in weeks. Every agent we deploy is consistent, explainable, compliant, and auditable by design — not as an afterthought. This capital lets us go deeper on the platform and broader across roles. And through our cloud and AI lab partnerships, institutions will increasingly find LiteCone already embedded in the platforms they run today.
Vaibhav Dobriyal, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, LUMIQ
Finance
Consumer confidence plunges among younger adults
Consumer confidence has plunged among traditionally optimistic younger adults amid fears for their personal finances and the wider economy, figures show.
GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index remained unchanged at an overall score of minus 23 in June.
However, the analyst said this was was “misleading as, beneath the surface, there are new signs that confidence is weakening”.
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “The biggest fall this month is among those aged 16 to 29, traditionally one of the most optimistic groups.
“Here confidence has dropped 11 points over the past month to minus two, the lowest level seen for two years, driven by large falls in views on both their own personal finances and the wider economy.
“More broadly, there are now no demographic groups with a positive confidence score, including higher-income households earning £50,000 or more, who have slipped back into negative territory as of June.
“Confidence remains subdued and vulnerable to further economic or political uncertainty.”
Overall, confidence in personal finances over the coming year remained flat at minus two, four points lower than this time last year.
The measures of both personal finances and the economy over the previous 12 months were both slightly down, by two points and three points respectively, “reflecting the sense that things have been extremely tough over the last year for so many”, GfK said.
The only measure to increase was expectations for the wider economy over the next 12 months, up two points to minus 36 but still eight points below this time last year.
The major purchase index, an indicator of confidence in buying big ticket items, remained at minus 20, four points lower than June last year.
Finance
How US-Iran peace deal will affect our cost of living
“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” said Donald Trump on social media after he announced the signing of an interim peace deal with Iran on Sunday. Under the agreement – which Iran acknowledged included a 60-day negotiating period for a final deal – the president said that following retrieval of mines, there would be a “toll free opening” of the Strait of Hormuz.
But many of the finer details remain “unclear”, said The Guardian. There are questions over the “exact timing of the reopening of the maritime route, who will oversee safe passage and whether any conditions will be applied”.
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