Here is our annual Key Financial Data piece. This two-page document is packed with valuable information for you to use throughout the year.
There is a lot of information on the document. I’ll point out some of the areas that may have the most valuable information for you. Please reach out to the office if you have any questions or would like to talk more about your situation.
Page One:
Left-Hand Column
- 2026 Tax Rate Schedule – This provides a guideline for federal income taxes. We suggest that you consult with an accountant or tax advisor to review your situation.
Middle Column
- Standard Deductions and Child Tax Credit – If you are taking Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) and are charitably inclined, you may benefit from doing a Qualified Charitable Distribution, or QCD. This is when you have some or all of your RMD go directly to a charity. By doing so, you keep the income from the amount that you give to the charity off of your taxable income. You can then still take your full standard deduction. This can be more tax-favorable than taking the RMD in hand and then making a contribution to the charity.
- Tax Rates On Long-Term Capital Gains and Qualified Dividends – If you have a non-retirement account, such as a brokerage account or TOD account. The gains are taxed when an underlying holding is sold. Mutual funds also pass through capital gains to shareholders even if you didn’t sell the mutual fund. Lastly, dividends can have tax consequences.
Right-Hand Column
- Gift and Estate Tax Exclusions and Credits – Note that these figures are for the Federal Level. Each state has its own estate tax limits. A common questions that we receive is when people ask about gift taxes. We can see here that a person can gift up to $19,000 in 2026 without needing to file a gift tax return. If you gift over $19,000, you do need to file a gift tax return. However, you probably won’t owe any taxes. The gift tax return simply tracks how much of the $13,990,000 lifetime exclusion you’ve used. It isn’t until you gift more than the $13,990,000 that taxes may apply.
Page Two:
Left-Hand Column
- Retirement Plan Contributions Limits and Individual Retirement Accounts - For those who are still working (or if you have grown children and want to get them saving for retirement), these are important figures to know. Note that once you stop working and no longer have earned income, your ability to contribution to retirement accounts becomes much more restricted. However you can still do Roth conversion regardless of your employment status. Also note that there is no limit on how much you can convert.
- Health Savings Accounts– One important item to remember here is that if you plan to enroll into Medicare, you need to stop your HSA contributions 6 months prior to going onto Medicare to avoid penalties. This situation presents itself when someone is working up to or beyond the age of 64 and ½.
Middle Column
- Social Security - We often have long discussions with our clients regarding social security planning. The Retirement Earning Exemption Amount is important to anyone who starts claiming their social security benefit prior to their full retirement age and then plans to continue working. If you earn above these limits, social security can take back some or all of your social security benefit.
Another important topic regarding social security is how it’s taxed. There are certain situations where we can help clients develop an income plan that can lessen the taxation of their social security benefits.
Right-Hand Column
- Medicare Premiums – Many people don’t realize that Medicare has a cost associated to it. What’s more, if your taxable income goes above certain thresholds, you may end up paying more for your Medicare. Common situations where people end up paying more for their Medicare is when they sell a second property, start taking RMD’s or have a large capital gain distribution on their non-retirement account and hadn’t planned for that increase of taxable income.
- Uniform Lifetime Table – If you are beyond the age of 73, you will need to be aware of Required Minimum Distributions. This chart can be used to determine what your RMD will be. Simply take the December 31st account value from the prior year and divide it by the figure that correlates with age that you are turning this year. Note that there are rules about aggregating RMD’s from different kinds of accounts that investors need to be aware of. Also, the rules for RMD’s from inherited assets can vary as well.
We hope that you find this document useful. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the office if you have any questions at all.