2026 Year-End Tax Guide

Dates to watch

• September 152026
  Third-quarter estimated tax payments — federal and Vermont. Extended 2025 partnership and S corporation returns are also due.
• September 302026
  Extended 2025 trust and estate returns (Form 1041).
• October 12026
  Last practical date to start a new retirement plan for 2026 A new SIMPLE IRA or a new safe-harbor 401(k) generally has to be effective by this date to count for the current year. This is the deadline that sneaks up on people.
• October 152026
  Extended 2025 individual returns — federal and Vermont. Also: extended C corporation returns, and the FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) for foreign financial accounts.
• December 312026
  The hard stop for most planning Required minimum distributions, Roth conversions, charitable gifts, and the timing of income and expenses all close out here.
• January 152027
  Fourth-quarter 2026 estimated tax payments

A late estimated payment is still worth making. Interest stops accruing the day the payment posts, so paying a few days late is considerably better than rolling the amount into the January installment. If your income has shifted materially since we calculated your estimates, talk to me before adjusting them on your own — the safe-harbor rules reward precision.

What's different this year

2026 is the first year most of the individual provisions of last year's tax legislation are fully in effect. Several of these changes affect decisions you make before December 31 rather than when your return is prepared.

Charitable giving, if you itemize

Your charitable deduction is now limited to the portion of your giving that exceeds 0.5% of your adjusted gross income. On $300,000 of AGI, the first $1,500 of giving produces no deduction at all. For anyone who gives steady, moderate amounts every year, concentrating two or three years of giving into a single year — or routing it through a donor-advised fund — is now worth real consideration.

Charitable giving, if you don't itemize

New this year: you can deduct up to $1,000 of cash contributions ($2,000 if married filing jointly) without itemizing. If you have been giving without any tax benefit at all, that has changed.

Qualified charitable distributions

If you are taking required minimum distributions, giving directly from an IRA now looks better than ever relative to an itemized deduction, because a QCD sidesteps the new floor entirely and keeps the amount out of your income.

Top-bracket itemizers

The tax benefit of itemized deductions is now effectively capped at 35% rather than 37%. A $10,000 deduction that used to be worth $3,700 is worth $3,500.

Business owners issuing 1099s

The reporting threshold for contractor payments rose from $600 to $2,000 for payments made during 2026. Your January filing list will likely be shorter. Collect W-9s now rather than in January, when the people you need them from stop answering the phone.

Year-end planning

Planning is only useful while there is still time to act on it. Depending on your situation, the conversation might cover:

• Income and withholding review, and updated estimate projections
• Timing of income and deductible expenses
• Capital gains and losses, including loss harvesting
• Required minimum distributions — a hard December 31 deadline with a meaningful penalty for missing it
• Roth conversions, also a December 31 deadline
• Charitable giving strategy under the new rules described above
• Retirement plan and health savings account contributions
• Business equipment purchases
• Bonuses, investment sales, retirement distributions, or other significant transactions

For business owners

Start before the books close, not after. Beyond the items above, the list usually includes:

• Retirement plan options and contribution opportunities
• Owner compensation and S corporation reasonable salary
• Estimated tax payments and the cash flow to make them
• Equipment or vehicle purchases
• Employee bonuses and benefits
• Reimbursements under an accountable plan
• Entity structure and ownership changes
• Bookkeeping cleanup and year-end reconciliations
• W-2 and 1099 information — assemble it in December, not late January

If you buy your own health coverage through the marketplace, the subsidy landscape has shifted. That is worth looking at before open enrollment rather than after.

If you get a notice

Send it to me — every page, including any response deadline — through the secure client portal, and let's look at it together before anything else happens.

A notice does not mean you owe money. It often traces back to a payment that posted to the wrong year, a form that crossed in the mail, or a mismatch between two documents. Calling the agency or sending your own explanation before we know which of those it is tends to create a second problem on top of the first.

Paying it is sometimes the right move and sometimes throwing money at an error. We can usually tell which within a day, so send it over and we will decide quickly.

If you do owe a balance you cannot pay in full, there are workable options, including short-term arrangements and installment agreements. File on time regardless. The failure-to-file penalty runs roughly ten times the failure-to-pay penalty, so filing without paying is always better than doing neither.

Keeping records

Good records buy you accuracy and, more valuably, time to plan. What actually helps:

• Separate business and personal accounts
• Monthly reconciliation of bank and credit card accounts
• Filing tax documents when they arrive instead of hunting for them in March
• Receipts and a short note explaining anything significant
• Business mileage recorded as you drive it, not reconstructed later
• Purchase and sale records for investments, property, vehicles, and major equipment
• Uploading documents through the secure portal rather than ordinary email
• Saved confirmations for every federal and Vermont payment

A few minutes a month beats reconstructing a year in April.

Let's talk

If you are expecting a major financial change, or you would simply like to look at your own situation before the year closes, you can schedule a planning session. There is an option for existing clients and one for anyone who is not a client yet.

October and November are the useful months for this. By mid-December, most of the levers have already been pulled.

Payment instructions, a step-by-step video on making a federal tax payment, and other guides are on the Client Resources page.

This guide is general information current as of September 2026 and is not individualized tax advice. Not every item applies to every client, and tax rules change. Please consult me about your specific circumstances before acting on anything described here.