Move Your Money Before December 31st - Or Miss the Biggest Wealth Shift in Years

Every December, the rich quietly move their money to pay less in taxes so they can grow their wealth even faster. But this year is different. President Trump's new tax laws are going to fully kick in on January 1st, 2026. And people are concerned about a potential recession, which means what you do with your money between now and December 31st could be the difference between paying thousands of dollars in additional taxes or keeping that money. In this video, I'm going to show you five things that you can do between now and December 31st to legally pay less money in taxes, because the full extent of President Trump's new tax plan is going to kick in on January 1, 2026. And this is coming as a licensed attorney who is your attorney, who keeps a copy of the federal income tax code in his office, but of course, never blindly trust a random guy on YouTube. So if you have specific tax questions, talk to an advisor in your area. Number one, push any big income gains into 2026. So if you're expecting a big bonus check, a big commission check, a big pay raise, if you could push these things into January or February of 2026, it can help lower your tax bill because we're going to see a changing of tax brackets come January 1. Take a look. This is what your tax brackets are going to look like in 2025, assuming that you are a single tax filer. And yes, I rounded these numbers just for simplicity. If you make between zero to $11,900, your top tax rate is 10%. For every dollar that you earn between $11,900 to $48,400, your top tax rate is 12%. For every dollar that you earn between $48,400 to $103,300, it's 22%. Then between $103,300 to $197,300, your top tax rate is 24%. Then between $197,000 and $250,000, your top tax rate is 32%. For every dollar that you earn between a quarter million and $626,300, your top tax rate is 35%. And then for every dollar that you earn above $626,000, your top tax rate is now 37%. But it's going to change in 2026. Take a look. In 2026, you're going to have the ability to earn more dollars, but pay less money in taxes compared to 2025 because all of these top tax bracket limits are higher than what we saw in 2025. So at the 10% number, it goes from $11,900 to $12,400. At the 12% top, it goes from $48,400 to $50,400. At the 22% top bracket, it goes from $103,000 to $105,700. At the 24% top, it goes from $197,300 to $201,700. At 32% top, it goes from a quarter million to $256,000. And at the 35% top, it goes from $626,000 to $640,600. So, if you have a big check coming in, bonus, commission, anything that you could push into January 1, that's going to allow you to earn that money and pay a little bit less money in taxes just because you earned it in year 2026 as opposed to year 2025. Number two, for those of you that are investors, the end of the year is when a lot of people start to think about restructuring their investment portfolio to minimize some of their taxes. Let's assume that five years ago, you invested $5,000 into stock A and now it's worth $15,000 in the year 2025, so you sell it for a profit. Now you made $10,000 worth of profit, which is great, but you have to pay taxes on that profit. However, the IRS says that if you also sell a long-term investment that you've owned for longer than a year and you have a loss on that other investment, you can take that loss to offset this. So, let's take a look at what happened with stock B that you've also owned for a number of years. You invested $37,000 into stock B and now it's down to $25,000 and you say, hmm, I lost $12,000 here. I haven't sold it yet, but if I sell this stock, I'm going to have a $12,000 loss here and a $10,000 gain here. If you sell this now, that means effectively you don't have a $10,000 gain, effectively you have a $2,000 loss, which means you're going to pay $0 in taxes on this gain right here because you're going to offset this gain with this loss. Now this is where things start to get interesting because let's also assume that you work a job and you are making $70,000 a year from your job. Normally, what the IRS says is you cannot take this investment income loss and use it to offset the income from your job because there are two different buckets of income, but there's an exception. If you have under $3,000 worth of loss here, now you can take this loss and use it to offset this income. That means now you're going to pay taxes on $68,000 worth of income as opposed to $70,000 worth of income. If you have more than a $3,000 loss, then you're going to carry that loss forward, meaning in the next year, you'll be able to use that loss to offset your gains. Now if you're trying to get scheming and you think, hmm, what if I sell the stock B on December 31st and then on January 1st, I just buy it up again. That way I can lower my taxes and then still own the same stock. The IRS is not going to allow you to do that. What they say is if you want to actually do that, you have to sell that stock and you cannot buy it back for at least another 30 days. You have to wait until day 31 to actually buy the stock back and be able to realize this tax loss. And while we're on the topic of investment taxes, let me show you what the investment tax rates are going to look like in 2026. This is again, assuming that you're a single tax filer and yes, I have rounded the numbers for simplicity, but you're going to pay $0 in taxes between $0 to $49,400. Then for every dollar that you earn between $49,400 to $545,500, you're going to pay a top tax bracket rate of 15% and then 20% on every dollar that you earn above $545,500, which means yes, when you earn your money from your investments, you pay less money in taxes legally because that's what the IRS tax code says. You are going to pay higher taxes when you earn your money from your job, lower tax rates from your investments, which is why it is so important for you to become an investor. And by the way, for those of you that are investors or want to become investors, I have a free investing masterclass that I put together where I walk you through how you can get started as an investor and find hidden investment opportunities before everybody else. I'll even show you the exact framework that my firm and I use to research investment opportunities before they hit the headlines. It's completely free and when you register for the masterclass, you're also going to get access to market briefs, which is my newsletter for investors, completely free. So if you want to get the investing masterclass and market briefs all for free, all you have to do is register and I have the link for you down in the description below. Number three, max out your 2025 tax advantaged accounts if you have any. This would be like putting your money into a health savings account, HSA, putting your money into a traditional IRA or a traditional 401k or 403b or putting your money into a SEP IRA. That way you can put your money into these accounts and not pay any taxes today. It is a strategy for some people, not everybody. And in 2025, the limits are $4,300 for HSA, $7,000 for IRA, $23,500 for a 401k or 403b and $70,000 for a SEP IRA or up to 25% of your compensation. Now the numbers are going to change in 2026. I'm just going to show you what the numbers are. That way you have it as reference. The HSA contribution limit is going to go up to $4,400. The IRA contribution limit is going to go up from $7,000 to $7,500. The 401k, 403b contribution limit is going to go up from $23,500 to $24,500 and then the SEP IRA contribution limit is going to go up from $70,000 up to $72,000 up to 25% of your compensation. Number four, spend money that we have lower taxable income. One of the changes in Trump's tax plan is expanding section 179, which allows businesses and side hustles to deduct purchases. And this change is actually done retroactively. So if you made a purchase from January 19th, 2025 until well, the end of 2025, you will be able to qualify for 100% bonus depreciation. So what that means is if you go out and you buy something for your business, maybe a laptop, a cell phone, a car that weighs over 6,000 pounds, machinery, some sort of equipment for your business. So you go out right now and you buy this $100,000 Mercedes Benz G wagon and no, I'm not recommending you do this. I'm just showing you how you can start to think in terms of taxes. Now I don't recommend you finance a car, but let's just do that for the purposes of this example. You go out and you put $20,000 down to purchase this car. So $20,000 leaves your bank account and now you finance the other $80,000. Now what you can do is if you can justify that this $100,000 G wagon is needed for your business, maybe you can say, I'm a TikTok influencer. I'm a big baller. I got to look the part. So I need this G wagon. If you can say that this G wagon is used 100% for your business, well, now you're going to get 100% right off in year one. That means you spend the $2,000. You finance the other $80,000, but you get a $100,000 tax right off. Even though all $100,000 did not leave your account. Now it's going to be tough to justify that the G wagon is 100% business. Maybe you say that this G wagon is used 70% for business, 30% for personal use. Well, now what that means is you're going to be able to qualify for a $70,000 right off in year one, even though $20,000 has only left your bank account. That means, yes, you get to qualify for this big tax break to lower your taxes because you spent that money. Now if you want my advice, even though I can't give you advice, do things that will actually help you in your business or your side hustles. So if you need a laptop, you need equipment, you need cameras, you need lighting, you need something that can actually help you make more money. That is a strategic way to spend money before the end of the year that we can lower your taxes and then have the ability to earn money and grow your business in 2026. And finally, the fifth thing that you can do before the end of the year that wealthy people love doing is donating money using something called a DAF, donor advised fund. So if you donate cash or stock or crypto before the end of the year, you can get a tax write off for that. But sometimes you don't know where to donate this money and instead what you can do is you can just put your money into a DAF, a donor advised fund. You can get the tax write off right now and then decide where you actually want to donate the money later. Now the thing that I want you to understand about this from a tax perspective specifically is you already qualify for a standard deduction. It's $14,000 for single tax filers, $29,000 for those of you that are married filing jointly. So if you want to lower your taxable income more, you have to have itemized deductions, meaning things like your donations, your mortgage interest and other things like that that add up to more than the standard deduction because well, if your itemized deductions are less than the standard deduction, you might as well just take the standard deduction because that means you're going to pay less money in taxes. So you have to make sure that you have enough money to donate to lower your actual taxable income. I'm not saying don't donate money. I'm talking about the tax side of things. The other part that you have to understand about donations is the amount of actual write off that you get is going to depend on how much income you have. It's going to depend on what you're donating, whether it's cash or stock or crypto. And it also depends on where you're donating this money to. So there's a lot of nuances here. But if you have a lot of extra income and you are feeling charitable, you can also get a tax write off if you donate that money. And if you don't know where to donate the money, you can also consider using a DAF and then figure out where you want to donate the money later. So there are big tax changes coming January 1, 2026. We've already seen some of the tax changes already implemented in 2025. But what wealthy people want to do is they want to restructure their finances before the end of the year. And that way they can take advantage of whatever tax changes they want to do before the year changes. And well, there's a lot of changes coming in 2026. So there are things that you can do. Number one is if you have a big income check coming in, see if you can move that to 2026 when your tax rates are going to be a little bit more favorable. Number two is if you have investment losses, you can use some of these losses to offset some of your investment gains and potentially offset some of your W-2 work income. Number three is if you have tax deferred accounts, things like a HSA IRA, 401k, 403b, or a SEP IRA, you can see the max contributions there to potentially lower your income with that. Number four is if you have a business, you have a side hustle, you're a 1099 or a business owner, there are strategic ways that you can spend money, which can help your business in the future, but also lower your taxable income today. And then number five is you can donate money. Again, if you're an investor, want to become an investor, I have my free investing masterclass for you down in the description, and if you got value out of this video, the best thank you is a referral. So if you could, please share this video with a friend, family member, colleague, or fellow investor that we can continue to spread this type of financial education. Thank you. It is getting harder than ever for the average person to get a job and build wealth because traditional entry-level skills are now being automated by AI. But this is the silver lining because for those of you that are go-getters that want to go the extra mile, this shift is going to create more millionaires than ever before. And yes, the things that I'm about to show you will apply whether you work a job or run a business.