The late stages of the year are a natural time to take stock of where you are and what you still want to accomplish by December 31. Families who use this season to think clearly and act deliberately can start the new year in a stronger position.
The key is to start now. Giving yourself ample time to review your balance sheet and your personal and financial goals for the coming year will allow you to make thoughtful adjustments before January 1, if needed. An early start will also make it easier to involve your personal and professional advisors in the process.
Here are 10 areas we recommend you review:
1. Revisit your wealth plan
Establish, or update, a structured decision-making framework for your goals. A clear framework that spans investments, spending and gifting will help you stay aligned with your long-term vision even as circumstances change.
Your J.P. Morgan team can work with you using our planning process and analytical tools to align your balance sheet with your goals. Together, we can model your projected cash flows and decisions, stress-test your plan and help you make adjustments so that your Wealth Plan and portfolio continue to reflect what matters most to you.
2. Hold the right amount of cash
We believe the Federal Reserve (Fed) to hike interest rates once this year, by 25 basis points, before holding rates steady for some time. Short-duration instruments and laddered structures can potentially offer attractive yields today while keeping you positioned to extend when yields peak.
- 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, knowing you have access to cash can help you avoid selling investments at the wrong time or unnecessarily realizing capital gains. Delaying the payment of taxes that come with the realization of investment gains, coupled with any ongoing returns, may well outweigh borrowing costs. Generally, there is no cost to establishing a line of credit—and it ensures you have ready access to liquidity when you really need it.
3. Revisit your portfolio
The investment backdrop has shifted meaningfully. Geopolitical fragmentation, persistent inflation and the rapid rise of AI are creating new opportunities to consider incorporating into your plan.
- Equities—Focus on companies with pricing power, exposure to AI-driven productivity gains and resilient earnings in a higher-for-longer rate environment. Emerging markets, particularly those benefiting from supply chain diversification away from China, also merit a fresh look.
- Fixed Income—With one more Fed hike anticipated this year, keep duration short and focus on high-quality, short-to-intermediate bonds that offer attractive yields today. Municipals remain compelling for U.S. taxable investors.
- Alternatives—Real assets including commodities, infrastructure and energy-related holdings continue to serve as both an inflation hedge and a geopolitical buffer. Private credit and diversified hedge fund strategies can also help reduce correlation to public market volatility in an environment where dispersion is likely to remain elevated.
4. Complete annual to-dos
Before December 31, be sure to:
- Fully fund retirement accounts to take advantage of tax-deferral benefits. For 2026, the employee contribution limits for a 401(k) account are $24,500 if you are under the age of 50, $32,500 if you are age 50–59; $35,750 if you are age 60–63. For an Individual Retirement Account (IRA), the limit is $7,500 if you are under age 50 and $8,600 if you are age 50 and above, subject to income phase-outs. Also evaluate the potential advantages of converting your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
- Take required minimum distributions (RMDs)—If you are age 73 or older, 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 2026, individuals can gift up to $19,000 per recipient, tax-free, while married couples can gift up to $38,000.
- Consider making large gifts to family—In 2026, individuals are allowed to give up to $15 million free of transfer (i.e., gift and estate) taxes, and married couples can give up to $30 million. If you have the capacity and desire to make a large gift to family and have not used your exemption in full or in part, consider making additional transfers this year. Married couples who have already used their exclusion amounts through 2025 can add $2.02 million this year without having to pay gift tax.
- 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. Refine your charitable giving strategy
In light of changes to the deductibility of charitable donations—especially for those in the highest income tax bracket—it’s important to be thoughtful about your donation strategy this year. It may be more beneficial now to “stack” your donations into one year to exceed the new 0.5% adjusted gross income (AGI) floor for charitable contributions.
Consider using 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 you wish to support. Donating long-term appreciated securities can potentially allow you to eliminate capital gains taxes and reduce concentration risks, while maximizing the impact of your contributions. Once the gift is made, consider how and when you want to deploy the funds to charitable causes that align with your vision.
For those age 70½ or older, Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) allow you to direct up to $111,000 from your IRA directly to qualified charities. QCDs count toward required minimum distributions but are excluded from taxable income—bypassing the AGI floor entirely. For high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, deciding between a QCD and gifting long-term appreciated assets is important, as the ancillary tax savings may not surpass those of a donation made with appreciated securities.
Keep in mind that some assets may take longer to transfer. Make sure any donation process is begun early enough to be deemed complete by December 31.
6. Optimize the tax efficiency of your portfolio
Implementing these three strategies can help you keep more of what your portfolio earns, creating more opportunities for your wealth:
- Tax-loss harvesting—Consider the tax benefits of selling positions at a loss to offset realized gains, but be careful not to violate the “wash sale” rule.2 This rule prevents you from taking a loss if you buy a security considered “substantially identical” within 30 days before or after the loss’s trade date. Putting a strategy in place to continually harvest losses can help you retain more of your returns throughout the year.
- Asset location—Have a strategic approach to optimizing after-tax returns 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, maximize their returns and, ultimately, create more spendable wealth.
A private placement variable annuity may be worth considering if contribution limits or income phaseouts leave little room in your tax-advantaged accounts — it allows tax-deferred growth on a wide range of investments, including alternatives typically excluded from standard annuities.
- 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 make withdrawals from taxable accounts, followed by taking funds from tax-deferred accounts. Lastly, they withdraw funds from tax-free accounts.
If 2026 is an unusually low-income year for your family, consider withdrawing 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 IRAs.
7. Review your estate planning documents and insurance policies
Take time to confirm that your estate planning documents reflect your current wishes and family circumstances. Wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives all deserve a periodic review, particularly if there has been a birth, death, marriage, divorce, or significant change in wealth since they were last updated.
Review your permanent life insurance policy cash values as well. When you initially bought the policy, the death benefit was calculated based on certain interest rate assumptions that may not reflect 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
- Whether the death benefit is the right amount
- The policy owner; consider whether it would be more advantageous to transfer ownership to a trust, and what the tax consequences of such a change might be
8. Be cybersafe in an ever-changing world
As artificial intelligence apps and tools continue to evolve, 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.
- Avoid sharing sensitive personal information and be wary of attempts to extract it with artificial intelligence (AI). Do not disclose sensitive and personal information in the chatbot, such as people’s names, birthdays, tax information, geographical addresses, etc.
- Verify sources and cross-check AI-generated information to avoid being manipulated.
- Watch out for AI-driven social engineering tactics, such as phishing emails, SMiShing (text phishing), vishing (voice phishing), AI-generated voice (voice cloning/impersonation) or deepfakes (synthetic media scams), and question unexpected requests for sensitive personal information.
- Establish a family verification protocol—a private code word or phrase you can use to confirm they are really who they say they are in an unusual or high-pressure situation.
9. Host a family meeting
It’s never too early to start discussing money and family values with your children and grandchildren.
This can start small, in settings such as conversations over dinner, introducing a child to your advisors, or choosing a charitable donation to make together as a family. When you’re ready to have a more formal conversation, end-of-year holiday gatherings, in addition to more formal family meetings, can be effective venues for aligning values, disclosing age-appropriate information and building financial literacy skills.
These moments intentionally build familiarity, trust and a sense of shared purpose long before any formal transfer of responsibility takes place.
10. Plan around concentrated positions, IPOs and executive compensation
With an active IPO market in 2026, many families are navigating significant new liquidity events—or preparing for ones on the horizon. Whether you are part of a company that recently completed its IPO, hold stock in a pre-IPO company, or manage a portfolio heavily weighted to a single position, this is the time to evaluate your exposure and goals.
Depending on your restrictions and tax situation, consider exchange funds, 10b5-1 trading plans, or charitable strategies (including DAFs and charitable remainder trusts) to manage single-stock risk in a tax-efficient manner.
If you received new equity awards this year, review the vesting schedule, the tax treatment at vesting versus exercise and whether you have awards approaching expiration that require action. If you were granted Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) or Non-Qualified Stock Options (NQSOs), develop an exercise strategy that will maximize the benefits of these grants well before the options expire. Accumulated company equity can typically be used for tax-efficient gifting to family or charities.
For those with post-IPO lockup expirations approaching, consider your options and liquidity needs, and develop a plan early to make decisions based on your ultimate intent.
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 2026 to a close and prepare for the year ahead.
