After 45 years in the financial services industry, one lesson I have learned is that successful financial planning is rarely about making one big decision. More often, it is the result of making a series of thoughtful decisions at the right time.
As we enter the final months of 2026, now is an excellent time to review your financial picture. Waiting until December can sometimes be too late. Many tax, retirement, investment, and charitable planning opportunities need to be evaluated—and in some cases implemented—before December 31.
Here are several areas I believe investors should be reviewing before year-end.
1. Review Your Tax Picture Before December 31
Tax planning should not begin when you prepare your tax return. By then, you are primarily reporting what already happened.
Effective tax planning is proactive.
Before year-end, consider reviewing your estimated 2026 taxable income, capital gains and losses, retirement distributions and potential deductions. This can help identify opportunities while there is still time to act.
For example, does it make sense to realize a capital loss to offset a gain? Should income or deductions be accelerated or deferred? Is this an appropriate year to consider a Roth conversion?
These decisions should not be made based solely on this year’s tax bill. The objective should be to determine how today’s decisions fit into your long-term retirement and tax strategy.
2. Consider Whether a Roth Conversion Makes Sense
For many retirees and pre-retirees, one of the biggest assets they own is also one of their largest potential future tax liabilities—their traditional IRA or 401(k).
Withdrawals from traditional retirement accounts are generally taxable, and required minimum distributions can eventually force additional taxable income whether you need the money or not.
That is why I believe Roth conversion planning deserves an annual review.
Rather than asking, “Should I convert my entire IRA to a Roth?” a better question may be:
“How much could I strategically convert this year without unnecessarily pushing myself into a higher tax bracket or creating other unintended tax consequences?”
A well-designed Roth conversion strategy may take place over several years. The goal is not necessarily to eliminate taxes today. It is to determine whether paying some tax today could potentially reduce your lifetime tax burden and provide greater tax flexibility later in retirement.
Roth conversions can also affect Medicare premiums and other tax considerations, so this strategy should be coordinated with your tax professional.
3. Maximize Retirement Contributions While You Still Can
If you are still working, review your retirement-plan contributions before the end of the year.
For 2026, employees can contribute up to $24,500 to most 401(k), 403(b) and governmental 457 plans. Those age 50 and older may generally make an additional $8,000 catch-up contribution.
There is an especially important opportunity for individuals who are ages 60 through 63 during 2026. Under current law, the higher catch-up contribution for this group is $11,250, potentially allowing eligible participants to contribute as much as $35,750 to certain workplace retirement plans.
The IRA contribution limit for 2026 is $7,500, with an additional $1,100 catch-up contribution for individuals age 50 and older, subject to applicable eligibility and income rules.
For higher-income employees making catch-up contributions, 2026 also introduces an important change: certain participants whose prior-year wages from the employer exceeded $150,000 are required to make their catch-up contributions on a Roth basis if the plan offers Roth catch-up contributions.
If you are approaching retirement, these final working years can represent some of your most valuable savings opportunities.
4. Don’t Just Take Your RMD—Plan Around It
For many retirement-account owners, required minimum distributions generally begin at age 73 under current law.
If you are subject to an RMD, make sure it is completed by the applicable deadline. But I encourage clients to go a step further.
Ask yourself:
Do I actually need this money to live on?
If the answer is no, there may be more strategic ways to think about the distribution and the assets surrounding it.
For charitably inclined investors who qualify, a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from an IRA may be worth discussing. Other investors may want to reinvest money they do not need for current expenses or use it as part of a broader gifting or estate-planning strategy.
The important point is that an RMD should not be treated simply as an administrative requirement. It should be incorporated into your overall income and tax plan.
5. Review Your Charitable Giving Strategy
For those who regularly give to charities, year-end is an excellent time to review how you are giving—not simply how much.
Writing a check may be easy, but it isn’t always the most tax-efficient approach.
Depending on your circumstances, donating appreciated securities may allow you to support an organization while potentially avoiding recognition of capital gains that could have resulted from selling the securities first.
A Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) can also be an effective planning tool for certain families. It may allow you to make a larger charitable contribution in one year while distributing grants to charities over time.
There are also new charitable deduction provisions in effect for 2026, making coordination with your CPA particularly important.
The larger lesson is simple: charitable giving and tax planning should work together.
6. Look for Tax-Loss Harvesting Opportunities
Market volatility isn’t always bad news.
If certain investments are trading below what you paid for them, selling those positions may generate capital losses that can potentially offset realized capital gains elsewhere in your portfolio.
This is commonly referred to as tax-loss harvesting.
But taxes should never be the sole reason for making an investment decision. Any sale should also make sense within your overall investment strategy, and investors need to be aware of the wash-sale rules when purchasing substantially identical securities around the time of a loss-generating sale.
The goal is not simply to generate a tax deduction. It is to improve the portfolio while taking advantage of available tax-planning opportunities.
7. Rebalance Your Portfolio—and Revisit Your Risk
A portfolio that was properly allocated in January may look considerably different by year-end.
Market movements can cause certain investments to become overweight while others become underweight. As a result, you may unknowingly be taking considerably more—or less—risk than you intended.
Rebalancing is an opportunity to bring the portfolio back in line with your objectives.
For investors approaching or already in retirement, this discussion becomes even more important. A significant market decline during the early years of retirement, combined with portfolio withdrawals, can have a very different impact than a decline experienced during your accumulation years.
This is known as sequence-of-returns risk, and it is one of the reasons retirement portfolios should not necessarily be managed the same way as portfolios designed primarily for accumulation.
8. Review Your Beneficiaries and Estate Plan
Your financial plan does not end with your investment accounts.
Take a few minutes before year-end to review the beneficiary designations on your IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, life insurance policies and other accounts.
Marriage, divorce, births, deaths and other family changes can make old beneficiary elections inconsistent with your current wishes.
It is also a good time to review your will, trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives with your estate-planning attorney.
For families interested in transferring wealth during their lifetime, the annual federal gift-tax exclusion remains $19,000 per recipient for 2026. More sophisticated gifting and estate strategies should, of course, be coordinated with your attorney and tax advisor.
9. Review Your Income Plan for 2027
If you are retired, don’t wait until January to determine where next year’s income will come from.
Which accounts will you draw from?
How much will come from Social Security or a pension?
How much should come from taxable accounts versus tax-deferred accounts?
Are you holding sufficient liquid assets so that a market decline doesn’t force you to sell investments at an unfavorable time?
Retirement income planning is about more than generating a monthly check. It requires coordinating income, investments, taxes, inflation, longevity and market risk.
10. Ask the Most Important Question: Has Anything Changed?
Your financial plan was built around assumptions—your income, expenses, family situation, health, retirement goals, tax situation and tolerance for risk.
Life changes.
Your financial strategy should change with it.
Maybe retirement is closer than it was a year ago. Perhaps you are helping children or grandchildren financially. Maybe you received an inheritance, sold a business, changed jobs, lost a spouse or simply decided that your priorities have changed.
Those changes should be reflected in your financial plan.
Don’t Wait Until December
Year-end planning isn’t about finding one clever tax strategy or predicting what the stock market will do next.
It is about looking at all the pieces of your financial life and making sure they are still working together.
Investments. Taxes. Retirement income. Estate planning. Charitable giving. Risk management.
Each decision can affect another.
After 45 years in this business, I continue to believe that some of the most valuable conversations we have with clients aren’t about which investment will perform best next year. They are about making thoughtful decisions today that can potentially put clients in a stronger position for the years ahead.
If you haven’t completed your year-end financial review yet, now is the time to start.
Michael Rosenberg, RFC, CPFA
Managing Director
Diversified Investment Strategies
This material is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as individualized investment, tax or legal advice. Tax laws and regulations are complex and subject to change. Please consult your financial professional, tax advisor and/or attorney regarding your individual circumstances.