Get ready For 2026: Make these 10 planning moves now

1. Create a wealth plan

Establish a structured decision-making framework for your investments and goals. This can help provide clarity and consistency to ensure that your goals are aligned with your financial resources.

Ask your J.P. Morgan team about our proprietary Wealth Plan Plus planning tool to help analyze your risk exposure and cash flows, and to position your balance sheet to support your objectives and make decisions.

2. Hold the right amount of cash

We expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates about 100 basis points over the next 12 months. Focus on fixed income with shorter maturities—those of around five to seven years—to help manage risk and take advantage of the current rate environment. Other planning moves to consider:

• Assess your cash needs and holdings—Ensure you have enough liquidity to cover one to five years of operating cash flow, provide a psychological safety net, fund large capital expenditures and allow for opportunistic investments.
• Establish a portfolio line of credit—Even if you never use it, having immediate access to cash can create peace of mind—as well as help you avoid selling investments at the wrong time or unnecessarily realizing capital gains. Further, delaying realization of investment gains, coupled with any ongoing returns, may well outweigh borrowing costs, even at a time of higher interest rates. Generally, there is no cost to establish the credit line—and it ensures you have ready access to liquidity when you really need it.

3. Focus on portfolio resilience

Bolster your portfolio’s resilience to risks, such as inflation, market volatility and policy uncertainty. Consider staying invested for your long-term goals and aligning the risk level of these assets to the time horizon and priority of your goals. Evaluate opportunities to invest excess cash, for example, by adopting one of these strategies:

• Equities—Focus on U.S. large-cap equities, especially in financials, utilities and technology, which we think will continue to outperform, driven by improving earnings expectations. International equities in developed and emerging markets also offer diversification and attractive valuations.
• Fixed income—Core fixed income serves as the primary source of resilience. Given their high tax-equivalent yields, consider neutral duration across core investment grade and longer-duration municipals.
• Alternatives—Using diversified hedge funds and infrastructure investments can provide income and inflation hedge with low correlation to traditional markets.

4. Complete annual to-dos

Before December 31, be sure to:

• Fully fund retirement accounts to take advantage of tax-deferral benefits—Evaluate the potential advantages of converting your traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA) to a Roth account.
• Take required minimum distributions (RMDs)—If you have reached 73 years of age or you are the beneficiary of an inherited IRA and have not yet done so, take RMDs from your retirement accounts to avoid a hefty penalty.¹
• Make annual exclusion gifts to family members—In 2025, you can gift up to $19,000 per recipient, tax-free. For married couples, the maximum tax-free gift amount is $38,000.
• Review family trusts—Investigate whether you and your family could save on state taxes by changing trustees or other fiduciaries. Also, carefully plan distributions from trusts to ensure they are as income-tax-efficient as possible.
• Comply with foundation distribution rules—If you have a private foundation, make sure it fulfills its 5% annual distribution requirement.

5. Enhance the tax efficiency of your portfolio

Implementing these three strategies can help enhance portfolio performance:

• Tax-loss harvesting—Consider the potential tax benefits of selling positions at a loss to offset realized gains, but be careful not to violate the “wash sale” rule. This rule prevents you from taking a loss if you buy a security considered “substantially identical” within 30 days before or after the loss trade date.² Putting in place a strategy to continually harvest losses may help you retain more of your returns.
• Asset location—Consider a strategic approach to optimizing after-tax savings by evaluating which account types should hold which investments based on tax efficiency and return potential. By implementing a disciplined asset location strategy, high-income earners can effectively manage their tax liabilities, enhance their savings and, ultimately, create more spendable wealth.
• Strategic withdrawals—Carefully manage portfolio withdrawals to minimize their tax impact. For example, clients in the top tax bracket generally take RMDs first (if applicable). Next, they tend to make withdrawals from taxable accounts, followed by taking funds from tax-deferred accounts. Lastly, they commonly withdraw funds from tax-free accounts. 

If 2025 is an unusually low-income year for your family, consider whether it makes sense to you to withdraw funds from tax-deferred accounts now, while you are in a lower tax bracket. This year may also be a tax-efficient time to convert traditional IRAs to Roth accounts. 

6. Consider donating to charity this year

Now may a good time to revise—or accelerate—your charitable giving plans. The recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) includes two tax rule changes that will become effective January 1, 2026. This new legislation:

• Imposes a new 0.5% adjusted gross income (AGI) floor for charitable contributions. Only the portion of contributions above 0.5% of a taxpayer’s AGI qualifies for a deduction.
• Limits the tax benefit of itemized deductions, including charitable donations. For taxpayers in the top 37% U.S. income tax bracket, this translates to a roughly 5.4% reduction to the lesser of (a) total itemized deductions, OR (b) the amount taxable income exceeds the starting point of the 37% rate bracket.

Importantly, these rule changes create a window of opportunity in 2025: Charitable donations made this year can still receive more favorable tax treatment than they will in future years—provided the taxpayer itemizes deductions. 

As you plan your philanthropic gifts, consider a donor-advised fund (DAF), which offers a strategic way to pre-fund years of giving, providing an immediate tax deduction while allowing you time to select the organizations to support. Consider donating long-term appreciated securities directly to a DAF—by doing so, you can eliminate capital gains taxes and painlessly reduce concentration risks, while maximizing the impact of your contributions.

Keep in mind: Some assets may take longer to transfer. Therefore, make sure any donation process is begun early enough to be deemed completed by December 31.

7. Review life insurance policies

Take the time to review your permanent life insurance policy cash values. When you initially bought the policy, the death benefit was calculated based on certain interest rate assumptions that may differ from what rates actually are today. Review all your policies, including term coverage, to make sure they still meet your initial intent and if any changes need to be made. Among the things to review, check:

• Who is named as beneficiaries
•  If the death benefit is the right amount
• The policy owner; consider if it would be more advantageous to transfer ownership to a trust

8. Give large gifts to family

Even though the OBBBA makes the higher estate and gift tax exclusion amounts permanent, gifting during your lifetime, whether outright or in trust, is still a good idea as long as you have the financial capacity and desire to do so.

In 2025, individuals are allowed to give up to $13.99 million free of transfer (i.e., gift and estate) taxes. (The tax-free gift amount is $27.98 million for married couples.) On January 1, these tax-free gift amounts will increase to $15 million and $30 million, respectively.

Gifting wealth to future generations can offer strategic benefits, as continued appreciation on these assets should not be subject to estate tax. For taxpayers who live in states that have an independent estate tax, be sure to evaluate your projected estate tax liability, and consider if gifting to family during your lifetime makes sense for your personal goals and tax planning.

9. Host a family meeting

It’s never too early to start discussing money and family values with your children and grandchildren. End-of-the-year holiday gatherings, in addition to more formal family meetings, can be effective venues for aligning on values, disclosing age-appropriate information and building financial literacy skills. Over time, having regular discussions can help ensure your family is prepared to manage wealth responsibly and in accordance with the family’s principles.

10. Be cybersafe in an ever-changing world

As artificial intelligence (AI) apps and tools continue to become integrated into daily life, it’s crucial to actively protect your data and privacy, especially from social engineering threats. Here are steps to take now:

• Create a new, dedicated email address when you sign up to use AI apps. Avoid using the email account you use for banking, work, social media or other personal services to minimize your exposure to phishing scams.
• Download reputable and licensed online tools and apps for better security and support.
• Verify sources, and cross-check AI-generated information to avoid being manipulated.
• Avoid sharing sensitive personal information, and be wary of AI attempts to extract your personal information.
• Watch out for AI-driven social engineering tactics, such as phishing emails, SMiShing (text phishing), vishing (voice phishing) or deepfakes (synthetic media scams), and question unexpected requests for sensitive personal information.

We can help

Ask your J.P. Morgan team for help analyzing the opportunities and risks across your balance sheet. They will work closely with you and your other professional advisors to help you bring 2025 to a close and prepare for the year ahead.