Finance

Hurricanes could impact millions of Americans’ taxes

Published

8 months ago

October 12, 2024

Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis joins Fox & Friends to discuss the states property insurance crisis as residents reel from Hurricane Milton.

The tens of millions of Americans that live in federal disaster areas are eligible for some relief from their taxes in the form of filing delays, and victims may be able to take a deduction from losses.

The Internal Revenue Service has automatically extended the filing deadline for taxpayers living in areas impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton to May 1, 2025, giving residents and businesses in those states and parts of states some extra time.

An aerial view of flood damage wrought by Hurricane Helene along the Swannanoa River on October 3, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. At least 200 people were killed in six states in the wake of the powerful hurricane which made landfall as a Categor (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images / Getty Images)

However, the extension is only for people in zip codes officially designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a federal disaster area.

For Helene, that includes the entire states of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as several counties in Tennessee, Virginia and Florida.

THESE ARE THE MOST COSTLY HURRICANES IN US HISTORY

But the entire state of Florida has been designated a disaster area due to Milton, so every resident qualifies for that extension.

sheriff vehicle driving through flooded area in Tampa

An aerial view shows a Sheriff’s Department vehicle moving through flooded streets in Tampa, Florida, due to Hurricane Milton on October 10, 2024. (BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The Sunshine State also offers hurricane victims a rebate on their property taxes. Under the property tax relief Florida signed into law following Hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022, homeowners may receive a prorated refund on their property taxes if a residence was rendered uninhabitable for at least 30 days by either of the deadly hurricanes.

FLORIDA SMALL BUSINESSES HAMMERED BY BACK-TO-BACK HURRICANES: ‘JUST GOING TO SAY A PRAYER’

Under federal law, victims that live in federally-designated disaster areas are also able to deduct losses that are not covered by insurance – but the details are complicated, as The Wall Street Journal points out.

workers searches through rubble in Florida after Helene

Roys restaurant worker searches through the rubble at the demolished restaurant after Hurricane Helene landed in Steinhatchee, Florida, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Michael Shaff, an attorney at Foundation Law Group, emphasized to FOX Business that victims must live in a federally declared disaster area in order to claim a deduction on losses, and that individuals and businesses only have two years to do so.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Shaff warned, “Whatever kind of recovery you get – whether it’s from the government or from an insurance company – you have to keep an eye on how long you have to replace it, and what you can replace it with.”

Finance

Robinhood shares drop after the online brokerage fails to get the nod to join the S&P 500

Published

8 minutes ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

People wait in line for T-shirts at a pop-up kiosk for the online brokerage Robinhood along Wall Street after the company went public with an initial public offering earlier in the day on July 29, 2021 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Robinhood shares sold off on Monday as the online brokerage was snubbed in the latest quarterly rebalance of the S&P 500 Index after months of speculation that it could earn a coveted spot in the benchmark.

Shares of Robinhood dropped nearly 5% in premarket trading. The stock has rallied 3.3% Friday to bring last week’s gain to over 13% before the S&P Dow Jones Indices said after the bell that the S&P 500 would remain unchanged.

Just last week, Bank of America called Robinhood a top candidate to join the S&P 500 during the big reshuffling in June. The S&P 500 rebalance, which typically comes on the third Friday of the last month in a quarter, is usually an impactful event as it can spark billions of dollars of trading and spur passive funds to snap up its shares. Companies being added to the index can generally expect funds like that to buy huge amounts of their shares in the coming weeks.

Crypto exchange Coinbase was the latest beneficiary of such an inclusion. The stock skyrocketed 24% in the next trading session following the announcement last month.

Still, Robinhood has had a major comeback this year so far with shares doubling in price. The online brokerage’s shares hit a fresh record high last week amid a rebound in both stocks and crypto. The company had fallen out of favor after the GameStop trading mania of 2021 fizzled and the collapse of FTX triggered a sell-off in digital assets.

Finance

UK’s FCA teams up with Nvidia to let banks experiment with AI

Published

5 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

LONDON — Britain’s financial services watchdog on Monday announced a new tie-up with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to let banks safely experiment with artificial intelligence.

The Financial Conduct Authority said it will launch a so-called Supercharged Sandbox that will “give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation.”

Starting from October, financial services institutions in the U.K. will be allowed to experiment with AI using Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI Enterprise Software products, the watchdog said in a press release.

The initiative is designed for firms in the “discovery and experiment phase” with AI, the FCA noted, adding that a separate live testing service exists for firms further along in AI development.

“This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so,” Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, said in a statement. “We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth.”

The FCA’s new sandbox addresses a key issue for banks, which have faced challenges shipping advanced new AI tools to their customers amid concerns over risks around privacy and fraud.

Large language models from the likes of OpenAI and Google send data back to overseas facilities — and privacy regulators have raised the alarm over how this information is stored and processed. There have meanwhile been several instances of malicious actors using generative AI to scam people.

Nvidia is behind the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to train and run powerful AI models. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to give a keynote talk at a tech conference in London on Monday morning.

Last year, HSBC’s generative AI lead, Edward Achtner, told a London tech conference he sees “a lot of success theater” in finance when it comes to artificial intelligence — hinting that some financial services firms are touting advances in AI without tangible product innovations to show for it.

He added that, while banks like HSBC have used AI for many years, new generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT come with their own unique compliance risks.