September 29th was National Coffee Day, a day to celebrate the perfect cup of joe. And while the IRS doesn’t offer a tax deduction for your daily latte habit (darn), they do provide some grounds for saving money elsewhere. This week, we're brewing up some tax tips you can use to put more money back in your pocket.

This week’s lineup:

• The Scholarship You Give Yourself: A guide to the two major education credits that can slash your tax bill.

• Honey, I Shrunk the Paycheck: The IRS can take money from your paycheck without a court order. Here are the four options you have to get it back.

• Abs of Steel, Receipts of Lies: How Jersey Shore’s Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino tried to flex his way out of taxes and got TKO'd by the IRS.

The Scholarship You Give Yourself: Education Credits Explained

If you’ve ever stood in a campus bookstore holding a $300 textbook and wondered if you could just absorb the knowledge by pressing it to your forehead, we have good news: the IRS might help pay for it. Not the forehead thing, sadly, but the textbook. 

Welcome to the world of education credits, where you can potentially reduce your tax bill just for going to school, provided you follow a surprisingly specific list of rules and don’t try to deduct that cafeteria spicy tuna roll you eat religiously. 

Meet Your Two Credits

AOTC: The Refundable High-Five

First up is the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), a tax credit for students in their first four years of higher education, up to $2,500 per student, per year. Even better? 40% (or up to $1,000) of that can be refundable, meaning you might get cash back even if you don’t owe taxes.

Yes, the IRS occasionally does nice things. No, this does not mean they’ve gone soft.

The credit has income limits, so not everyone can qualify.

• For single filers, the full tax break is yours if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is under $80,000, and a smaller credit is available for incomes up to $90,000.

• For married couples filing jointly, you get the full credit under $160,000 MAGI, and a partial credit up to $180,000.

If your income is above those caps, you're out of luck. Sorry, trust fund babies.

LLC: The Sensible, Non-Refundable Cousin

Then there’s the Lifetime Learning Credit (LLC), which sounds like something your uncle would claim to write off yoga teacher training, but is a decent option for grad students, part-timers, or anyone taking classes to boost their career.

It’s worth up to $2,000 per return, not per student, and unlike AOTC, it’s not refundable. It also doesn’t care how many years you’ve been in school or whether you’re pursuing a degree.

It’s the chill, no-judgment credit that just wants to help you learn to code or finally take that welding course.  

Think of it as a scholarship from the IRS. Here's how to claim every dollar you deserve.

Honey, I Shrunk the Paycheck: A Look at Wage Garnishment

You know that feeling when you check your bank account and it’s a little … lighter than you expected? It’s a universal dread, like realizing you’ve been walking around all day with spinach in your teeth.

But what if it’s not just your questionable spending habits? What if someone else is taking a slice of your hard-earned pie before it even gets to your plate? If that someone is the IRS, you might be dealing with a wage garnishment.

What in the World is Wage Garnishment?

Wage garnishment is a fancy legal term for when a creditor takes money directly from your paycheck to satisfy a debt. It’s like having an uninvited roommate who doesn’t help with the rent but definitely helps themselves to your food.

While creditors for everything from child support to unpaid credit card bills can get a court order to garnish your wages, one of the most notorious fans of this method is the IRS. And they play by a different set of rules.

The IRS Process: No Courtroom Required

Thankfully, you don’t live in a world where a grumpy gnome can just decide he’s taking a portion of your income. There’s a process. For most creditors, this involves going to court. The IRS, however, can skip that step.

They have the authority to garnish your wages administratively. This process starts long before your paycheck shrinks. First, the IRS assesses a tax and sends you a bill. If that’s ignored, they’ll send a series of notices, culminating in a “Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing.” This is their not-so-subtle way of saying, “We’re serious.”

Once that notice is sent and the deadline passes, they can legally order your employer to withhold a portion of your pay. Don’t get mad at your HR department; they’re just following federal law.

Don't just worry — here are the concrete steps you can take to stop the garnishment and reclaim your income.

If your finances are a dumpster fire and the IRS just showed up with a gas can, it might be time to call for backup.

TaxQuotes is the emergency service for your worst tax nightmares. Whether you're facing down unfiled taxes, trying to stop garnishments, or just tired of unreliable tax pros, they've seen it all.

Click here for a free consultation and let them put out the fire.

Abs of Steel, Receipts of Lies: “The Situation” vs. The IRS

If you were alive in 2009 and owned a television, you either watched “Jersey Shore” or wasted an alarming amount of energy trying not to. Either way, you knew Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, a man who turned bronzer and biceps into a multimillion-dollar empire.

He was famous for doing sit-ups on camera and getting bounced from bars before happy hour. What the IRS would later discover is that his crunches weren’t limited to his core. His numbers were doing gymnastics, too.

GTL: Gym, Tan, Launder?

Fresh off the boardwalk and into America’s collective consciousness, The Situation cashed in fast. Club appearances netted him $10,000 a night. Fitness DVDs flew off the shelves. And if you didn’t own a “GTL” shirt by 2011, were you even alive?

To wrangle the flood of cash, Mike and his brother Marc founded MPS Entertainment LLC, because nothing says “responsible wealth management” like handing the books to the guy who once spray-tanned your abs before a red carpet event.

Creative Accounting, Shore Style

Between 2010 and 2012, the brothers made nearly $9 million but reported significantly less. Their “business expenses” ranged from luxury cars to designer clothes to tanning sessions, because the glow of deception must be maintained.

Mike also made a habit of depositing cash just under the $10,000 reporting threshold, which is the financial equivalent of shouting, “Ignore me, nothing shady here!”

Fist Pumps and Federal Charges

In 2014, the IRS dropped the beat, by which we mean the indictments. Mike and Marc were charged with tax fraud, conspiracy and false filings. Mike eventually pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of tax evasion. Marc, too, pleaded guilty and received a sentence of two years for aiding in the preparation of a false and fraudulent tax return. Mike got eight months. Spray tans revoked.

At sentencing, the “Jersey Shore” crew showed up in solidarity, proving nothing says “character witness” like Snooki in a courtroom blazer. The judge praised Mike’s sobriety and redemption arc but reminded everyone that self-improvement doesn’t erase unpaid taxes.

The judge dropped the final verdict, and it was a situation not even Snooki could fix.

The quick (and slightly prickly) stories we didn’t have time to get to:

• The IRS has released a proposed regulation that identifies 68 qualifying occupations, including some non-traditional ones like electricians and cooks, for the new "No Tax on Tips" deduction, which allows eligible workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually through 2028.

• The IRS is expected to adjust the 2026 income tax brackets for inflation, a move that could lower taxes for millions of households, with an even larger adjustment projected for the bottom two brackets due to the new tax and spending law.

• The IRS is intensifying its enforcement on taxpayers claiming Puerto Rican residency under Act 60 to avoid federal taxes, as highlighted by a recent high-profile fraud case where an investor faced prison time and a multimillion-dollar restitution order for faking his residency.

Think you're a tax whiz? Prove it with our trivia question below.