Review key 2026 year-end financial planning priorities, including retirement contributions, charitable giving, Roth conversions, tax withholding, beneficiary designations, and more.
Transcript
Hi, I’m Mike Walther with Oak Wealth Advisors, with your 2026 financial planning priorities for the year-end, there’s still four months to go in 2026 when we recorded this, so there’s plenty of time to get these things addressed. We hope that all of you will reach out to your financial advisor to see which ones are most appropriate for you to be implementing.
First, with respect to retirement savings accounts, let’s utilize those to the fullest extent possible. There are limits whether you’re using an IRA or a retirement plan through work, like a 401(k) or a 403(b). And if you’re like me, over age 50, you can add additional funds to those accounts so that when it comes time for retirement, you’ve got as much as possible available.
In addition, with your health savings account or flexible spending account at work, make sure that you and your advisor are working to utilize that to your fullest benefit. In some cases, you’re trying to spend that down as quickly as possible during the year. In other cases, you want to fund that to the maximum and get it used by year-end. In some cases, there’s even a planning technique where you might not want to spend it during the year. You want to save it for a future year, but make sure you’re in alignment with what your plan is. Get that done for 2026.
The final area here for savings has to do with saving for others using education 529 savings plans and ABLE accounts. For those of us with loved ones with disabilities, we can save up to $20,000 in that ABLE account this year. And if the individual is working, an additional $15,960 can be saved.
For those of you saving for a college savings account, that limit is $19,000 this year. And for those of you with kids under the age of 18, if you want to use the new Trump Savings Account, the limit for that is $5,000 for 2026 from all sources.
With respect to your tax planning, there are three areas there to consider.
The first has to do with charitable giving. Let’s maximize our charitable intention and get the most tax benefit for our goodwill. There are certain limits on how much you can deduct, and making sure you’re aware of that is very important. And also understanding what the most tax-efficient way to give is, so that you can utilize different strategies to get the charity the amount you want to give them and get the biggest tax benefit. So work with your advisor to maximize that.
Then, with respect to Roth conversions, for a number of people who are at or in retirement, there’s opportunities there to do a Roth conversion and move future retirement dollars to be tax-free, but that requires planning. So reach out to your financial consultant, your tax advisor, and look at the opportunity to do that in 2026 while there’s still time.
And finally, again, work with your tax consultant to evaluate where you are in the year with your income versus what was expected. Update any estimated tax payments and adjust withholding if necessary.
The final area of planning opportunity has to do with beneficiary designations and retirement plan projections.
Very important to remember that the beneficiary on a life insurance policy or a retirement plan of any sort is going to be the person who gets the money, not what says in your will, but rather what the beneficiary is listed on that policy.
So review that. Has there been a change in your family, a death, a marriage, a divorce, any kind of a life event that might change who should be getting your assets when you pass? Make sure that it’s updated in your beneficiary designations.
And with respect to the planning projections, nothing brings greater peace of mind than knowing with some confidence that you’ll have enough money in retirement, or trying to figure out how much more you need to be able to retire comfortably.
Our planning models can help you with that, so be sure to reach out to your financial advisor and get that in place before year-end.
And like everything else, if you want more information, you can find us online on the social media channels we have, or on our Special Needs Voice podcast, where we feature lots of the industry-leading advisors with respect to special needs planning.
So stay in touch with us, reach out to your advisor with any questions, and we hope you have a great rest of the year. We hope you can be part of that with your planning.
Take care and best wishes.
