Investor’s Business Daily: lookING ahead to 2026

Investor’s Business Daily looks ahead to 2026 and how the new “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and updated brackets change the retirement planning game—especially for taxes. The theme running through the piece: you cannot just recycle last year’s tactics and hope for the best.

My main message in the article is to treat early 2026 as your tax-planning “preseason,” not an afterthought. As I put it, “Start early. Run a 2026 pretax projection. Why wait?” That means estimating this year’s income, retirement withdrawals, Social Security, and investment gains now, so you can spot withholding gaps, avoid April surprises, and deliberately use tools like qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) and the temporarily higher SALT cap before new phaseouts bite.

I also warned that “the biggest risks or blind spots for 2026 include forgetting that the tax law has changed.” The OBBB Act layers in new income phaseouts—especially for retirees—and extends some TCJA provisions, which makes multi‑year planning crucial. In the story I emphasize that “proactive planning is the antidote to April surprises,” and that simply repeating last year’s approach means many households will “miss bigger deductions or overpay.”

The article highlights specific examples: the new “senior Social Security” deduction with its MAGI-based phaseouts, the temporarily increased SALT cap for those under $500,000 AGI, and the need to coordinate Roth conversions, RMD planning, and withdrawals to avoid IRMAA Medicare surcharges. As I note, “Your income from 2026 will drive your future Medicare premiums,” so the order and timing of withdrawals have real cash-flow consequences.

In short, my comments stress three pillars for 2026:

Run real projections under the new rules,

Coordinate giving, withdrawals, and deductions across multiple years, and

Review your spending and income plan so your money is working as hard—and as tax‑efficiently—as the law now allows.