2026 Year-End Tax Planning: Six Questions to Review With Your Tax Adviser

Year-end tax conversations are more useful when they happen before the year closes. After December 31, transaction dates, placed-in-service dates, and other underlying facts may already be fixed, leaving less time to gather missing support or consider available choices with your adviser.

This guide is not tax advice, and The Aligned Ledger is not a CPA firm — we do not prepare returns, determine eligibility, or make elections. Our role is to help maintain the books and supporting schedules those discussions rely on. Below are six questions worth putting on the agenda with your own qualified tax adviser before December 31, along with records to prepare for the conversation.

1. What does our taxable income look like, and are estimated payments still right?

Start with the number everything else depends on. A forecast of taxable income for the year — built from reconciled books through the most recent close, plus a realistic projection of the remaining weeks — lets your adviser tell you whether your estimated payments are tracking, running short, or running ahead.

The cash consequence matters as much as the tax one. A shortfall discovered in September can be funded over a quarter; the same shortfall discovered in April competes with payroll. Pair this question with a rolling cash forecast so you can see the payment dates against your real bank balance — our 13-week cash flow forecast guide walks through the structure, and the free 13-week cash flow model gives you the template.

What to bring: reconciled year-to-date financials, a projection for the remaining period, the estimated payments already made, and any known one-off items — an asset sale, a large settlement, a distribution pattern change. Your adviser decides what the payments should be.

2. If we are buying equipment, how do acquisition and placed-in-service timing affect depreciation?

Writing a check before December 31 does not by itself settle the depreciation question. Depreciation treatment turns on rules about when property was acquired and when it was placed in service — meaning ready and available for its intended use — and those are two different dates that can fall in two different years.

The One, Big, Beautiful Bill amended the additional first-year depreciation deduction, and Treasury and the IRS have issued guidance on how the amended rules apply. Whether a particular asset qualifies for a 100% first-year deduction depends on the acquisition and placed-in-service rules as applied to your specific facts. There is no blanket answer, and you should not assume an asset qualifies because a vendor's marketing says so. See the IRS newsroom guidance on the amended additional first-year depreciation deduction, and take the eligibility question to your tax adviser.

What to bring: a current fixed-asset schedule, purchase agreements and invoices with dates, delivery and installation records, and support for the in-service date of each asset. If those dates or documents are incomplete, identify the gaps early and assign someone to gather the support before the adviser meeting.

3. Do business-interest limitations apply to us, and can we support the calculation?

If your business carries debt, ask whether the limitation on the deduction for business interest expense applies to you this year. The rules involve a computed limit, exceptions that some taxpayers qualify for, elections that certain trades or businesses can make, and carryforward mechanics for amounts that are limited. Whether and how they apply is a determination for your adviser.

The IRS publishes a plain-language questions-and-answers page on the business-interest expense limitation that is worth reading before the meeting so you can ask better questions.

What to bring: a complete debt schedule by entity, loan agreements, interest expense broken out cleanly in the general ledger rather than buried in a catch-all account, related-party loan documentation, and the prior-year return so any carryforward is visible.

4. Could any of our property be qualified production property — and what would that require?

This one attracts more enthusiasm than it deserves. Treasury and the IRS have issued guidance on a special depreciation allowance for qualified production property and announced upcoming proposed regulations under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill. The category is narrow and definitional: it is not a general rule that buildings or construction projects qualify.

If you are building, expanding, or converting facilities, it is a fair question to raise — and a question only your tax adviser can answer against the published requirements and your specific property, use, and timing. Read the IRS notice on the special depreciation allowance for qualified production property, and treat any confident claim that your project automatically qualifies as a reason for more scrutiny, not less.

What to bring: construction and project documentation, descriptions of how the space is used, cost segregation by component if you have it, and a timeline of project milestones.

5. Are our entity records, basis support, and intercompany balances reconciled?

For owners with more than one entity, mismatched intercompany balances, inconsistently recorded equity or distribution activity, and missing basis support can create additional reconciliation work during filing preparation. Review those records before the handoff so open items can be documented and resolved with the appropriate adviser.

Reconciling the underlying records is a bookkeeping process. Your adviser still owns every basis determination and reporting position; the practical goal is to identify differences, document open questions, and provide agreed schedules where the available records support them. Our guide to managing finances across multiple entities covers the structure — separate bank accounts and books per entity, one consistent chart mapping, and documented intercompany balances.

What to bring: the current entity chart with ownership percentages, an intercompany matrix showing each balance from both sides, distribution and contribution records, loan documents between related parties, and prior-year K-1s and basis schedules.

6. Where do federal and state treatment differ, and which elections and deadlines must we confirm?

States do not automatically follow federal rules, including depreciation rules, and a position that works federally can create a separate state calculation. If you operate or hold property in more than one state, ask your adviser where the treatments diverge and what that means for your records.

Then close the meeting with the administrative list: which elections have to be made with the return, which have earlier deadlines, what the filing and extension dates are for each entity, and what your adviser needs from us and by when. Write down owners and dates. An election missed because nobody owned the date is the avoidable kind of expensive.

What to bring: a list of states with activity or property, prior-year state filings, and the entity-by-entity filing calendar. Ask your adviser to confirm every date rather than relying on last year's.

How we support the conversation

Our role is upstream of all six questions. We can reconcile the books, maintain fixed-asset and debt schedules, document intercompany activity, and assemble a year-end package designed to give your adviser organized records and clearly identified open items.

We do not prepare or file returns, determine eligibility for any deduction or allowance, make elections, or advise on tax positions. Those decisions belong to your qualified tax adviser, and this guide is educational only — nothing here is tax advice or a statement that any rule applies to your situation.