By Rick Waechter, Founder

2026 is less than a month away, and for many of us, it’s hard to find a moment of free time before the calendar flips. To help you focus on the most important financial tasks before 2026, here is a trimmed-back checklist of the essential items to accomplish before 1/1/2026.

5 Financial Tasks Before 2026

1. Retirement plan required minimum distributions (RMDs). Anyone who is 73 or older as of 12/31/2025 must take an RMD from a traditional or SEP IRA and from a 401k or 403b company plan if they will no longer be employed by the company as of 12/31/2025. If you have an inherited IRA, most people must take out an RMD regardless of their age. The penalty for not taking out the RMD is 25% of the shortfall.
2. Maxing out company retirement plan. If you intend to max out your 401k or 403b contribution, you must do so by the final paycheck. The max is $23,500, unless you will be 50+ by 12/31/2025, in which case the maximum is $31,000. Confusingly, if you are 60-63 at year-end, the max is $34,750.
3. Giving to kids. If you give to your children or others, you can give up to $19,000 in 2025 as an annual exclusion gift. The benefits: there is no tax reporting, and such gifts do not reduce your lifetime gift and estate tax exemption. So, a married couple with three kids and three grandchildren could reduce their taxable estate by $19,000 x 6 x 2 = $228,000. If the couple were to owe estate tax when they died, they would have saved themselves from the 40% estate tax = $91,200. Don’t think you will owe estate tax when you die, because the exemption is $15 mm / person? Don’t be so confident. The exemption was $600,000 only 25 years ago.
4. Charitable giving. If this is a good year for you to make charitable gifts, 12/31 is the deadline. If it’s an especially good year (i.e., your taxable income will be unusually high), consider giving several years of donations to a donor-advised fund (DAF) and then making grants from the DAF over the next few years. You’ll get all the tax deduction this year, because the gift to the DAF triggers the deduction.
5. Maxing out your health savings account. If you have a high-deductible health plan (HDHP), you can contribute to an HSA (Health Savings Account) and claim a tax deduction for the full amount. The max contribution for a family (2+ insured) is $8,550 (or $4,300 for a single participant) + $1,000 if you are 55+. This is a mechanism to make your health care out of pockets into tax-deductible expenses.

There are other actions which may make sense for certain readers, ranging from generating capital gains if you are in a low tax bracket to doing a mega backdoor Roth contribution into your 401k. But the five we listed above are probably most common.

Get these done this coming week, so you can focus on limbering up your vocal cords for Auld Lang Syne.