Flexible Spending Accounts

The benefit of a Flexible Spending Account is obvious: Using pre-tax dollars to pay for health or child care expenses can save you a fortune. The risk is that if you don't spend the cash, you lose it. But you may have more time to do that than you thought.

Chalk it up to the nation's lingering economic malaise: More Americans this year plan to sock some of their tax refund away in savings. If you're among them, here are a few smart ways to stash that cash.

Thanks to confusing and often misunderstood rules surrounding child-care tax breaks, the author has overpaid Uncle Sam to the tune of $1,000, missing out on $200 in tax savings each year for the past half-decade. Read on to avoid her mistake -- unless you enjoy filing mounds of amended returns.

Open enrollment season is upon us, when employees can chose again from among the smorgasbord of benefit options offered by their employers. To help you ensure you're getting the most bang for your health care buck -- and not paying more than you need to -- we went to the experts for advice.

It's a guarantee in our health-care system: You may get better or you may not, but what you will get either way is paperwork: insurance claims, bills, receipts, and reams of forms that stand between you and the money you're owed. Recently, a new industry has sprung up to help you conquer the paper and recover your cash.

When it comes to flexible spending accounts (FSAs), you use it or lose it. That's meant the 30 million Americans who have paid into their FSAs have left about $450 million of tax-free money unclaimed by the time the deadline rolls around, according to Jeremy Miller, founder and president of...

Flexible Spending Accounts, which allow you to use pre-tax dollars to pay for dental and medical expenses that aren't covered by insurance, have long been favored by budget conscious consumers. That's because money that goes into these accounts escapes income, Social Security and Medicare taxes,...

Use it or lose it -- that's the mantra of flexible spending accounts (FSAs). It sounds scary, but these accounts, funded by your pre-tax wages, are great ways to save on child care or medical expenses. So whether you're trying to use all the money you set aside this year or are planning for 2011,...

One of the most controversial pieces of the current health care reform bill is the introduction of the so-called "Cadillac tax" -- an excise tax on premium insurance plans that would be used to offset the estimated $940 billion price tag for health care reform. The term "Cadillac tax" was coined...