Ninety Days Left to Change Your 2026 Tax Bill
Tax year 2026 ends on December 31. The return that reports it isn't due until April 15, 2027, and that gap is where most owners lose money. By the time the return is being prepared, nearly every decision that could have changed the number is already locked. Filing is reporting. Planning happens now.
Here's what applies to the year you're currently in, and what's still worth doing in the next ninety days.
The numbers that govern 2026
The seven marginal rates of 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent are unchanged from 2025 and now permanent under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. What moved are the income thresholds, adjusted for inflation by about 2.7 percent on average under Revenue Procedure 2025-32.
For the year now closing:
Standard deduction:
$32,200 for married couples filing jointly, $16,100 for single filers and married filing separately, $24,150 for heads of household. These are inflation adjustments layered on top of the higher base the OBBBA made permanent, so they are considerably above what most people remember from a few years ago. Filers aged 65 and over add $2,050 if unmarried or $1,650 per qualifying spouse, and the separate $6,000 senior deduction remains available through tax year 2028.
Bracket thresholds:
The top 37 percent rate begins at $640,601 of taxable income for single filers and $768,701 for joint filers. The bottom two brackets received a larger inflation adjustment than the higher ones, roughly 4 percent against 2.3 percent, which slightly favours lower and middle incomes.
Child tax credit:
Permanently set at $2,200 per qualifying child, with up to $1,700 refundable.
Alternative minimum tax:
The exemption sits at $90,100 for single filers and $140,200 for joint filers, with the phase-out threshold permanently fixed at $500,000 and $1 million rather than reverting to pre-2017 levels.
Estate and gift:
The basic exclusion is $15 million per decedent for 2026, with inflation indexing resuming from that baseline in 2027. The annual gift exclusion stays at $19,000 per recipient, and exceeding it for any one person triggers a Form 709 filing.
On the business side, three provisions became permanent rather than phasing out, which changes how far ahead you can plan:
100 percent bonus depreciation:
Restored for qualifying property acquired after January 19, 2025, and now permanent. This reverses the phase-down that would have dropped it to 20 percent this year, so equipment placed in service before December 31 is fully deductible rather than spread across its useful life.
Section 179 expensing:
The cap is $2.56 million for 2026, with the phase-out beginning at $4.09 million of purchases. Qualifying property was expanded to include roofs, HVAC, fire protection and alarm systems, and security systems on non-residential real property. Which tool to use, and in what order, depends on your income and entity type, so it's a decision worth making deliberately rather than defaulting to one.
R&D expensing:
New Section 174A allows domestic research costs to be deducted in the year incurred, permanently, ending the five-year amortization that applied from 2022 through 2024. Businesses that develop software, products or processes should check whether the catch-up provision for those earlier years applies to them.
QBI deduction:
The 20 percent deduction for pass-through owners is permanent, with expanded phase-in ranges. The 2026 threshold is $256,000 for single filers, down from $313,000 in 2025, and double that for joint filers.
The reporting change that will catch people out in January
The 1099 threshold moved for the first time since 1954. Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC now apply at $2,000 instead of $600, for payments made after December 31, 2025, with inflation indexing beginning in 2027. The 1099-K threshold reverted to more than $20,000 and 200 transactions, with both tests required before a platform must file, so exceeding one alone no longer creates a reporting obligation.
The trap is obvious once stated and missed constantly. These thresholds determine when a payer must issue a form, not whether income is taxable. A $1,500 client who sends nothing is still reportable income, and net self-employment earnings of $400 or more still trigger a filing requirement and self-employment tax. Fewer forms will arrive in January 2027. Nothing about what you owe has changed.
Two things follow. If you pay contractors, keep W-9s on every vendor regardless of amount, because state thresholds did not necessarily follow the federal change and several still sit at $600. If you are the one being paid, your own books are now the primary record rather than the forms in your inbox.
Dates still live for 2026
December 31, 2026:
The hard cutoff for anything discretionary: equipment placed in service, 401(k) employee deferrals, charitable contributions, bonus and distribution timing. It is also the deadline for required minimum distributions for anyone aged 73 or older.
January 15, 2027:
The fourth and final estimated installment for 2026. The underpayment penalty is computed quarter by quarter, so a large payment in January does not retroactively cure a Q2 or Q3 shortfall. Size it against the correct safe harbor: the smaller of 90 percent of current-year tax or 100 percent of prior-year tax, rising to 110 percent where prior-year AGI exceeded $150,000.
February 1, 2027:
W-2s to employees, 1099-NECs to contractors and the IRS, Form 940 for FUTA, and the Q4 Form 941. January 31 falls on a Sunday, so the weekend rule pushes these to the Monday.
March 15, 2027:
Calendar-year partnerships on Form 1065 and S corporations on Form 1120-S, with Schedule K-1s due to owners the same day. The late-filing penalty here is assessed per partner or shareholder per month, so even a small entity accumulates it quickly.
April 15, 2027:
Individual returns on Form 1040 and calendar-year C corporations on Form 1120, plus the Q1 2027 estimated payment and the IRA and HSA contribution deadline for tax year 2026. Six-month extensions are available on Form 4868 or Form 7004, but an extension moves the filing date and never the payment date. Interest and late-payment charges run from April on any unpaid balance, and the HSA deadline does not extend even if the return does.
If you own a US entity from outside the US:
Two filings sit off the normal calendar and carry penalties out of all proportion to the effort of filing them.
Form 5472:
A foreign-owned single-member LLC generally must file this with a pro-forma Form 1120 by April 15, even with no US income, no employees and no tax due. The penalty starts at $25,000 per form, per year, and it is the most common and most expensive oversight among non-resident owners. Reportable transactions include capital contributions and distributions, not just trading income, so a dormant entity often still has something to report.
FBAR, FinCEN Form 114:
Due April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15, filed electronically through the BSA E-Filing System rather than with your tax return. It applies to any US person whose foreign financial accounts exceeded $10,000 in aggregate at any point during the year, measured across all accounts combined rather than per account. Taxpayers living abroad also get an automatic two-month extension on their return, which covers Form 1040-NR where no tax was withheld at source. ##Three things to do before the holidays ##Re-project 2026 income against what you have actually paid in: If the year ran hotter than expected, the January installment is where you correct it. Waiting until April converts a timing problem into a penalty and interest problem, and the quarter-by-quarter calculation means the earlier shortfall keeps accruing regardless of what you send later.
Reconcile the vendor and contractor list:
Confirm a W-9 is on file for every payee, identify which payments cross the new $2,000 federal line, and check the threshold in each state where you have a filing obligation. This is also the moment to review contractor versus employee classification, which is far cheaper to fix before the forms go out than after.
Close the books through Q3 now rather than in February:
Full expensing is only usable if the fixed-asset schedule is complete and purchases are properly dated to when property was placed in service, not when it was ordered or paid for. Incomplete records turn a real deduction into a theoretical one, and clean statements matter separately for banking and investor conversations.
The larger shift this year is that the planning horizon extended. For most of the last decade, year-end work meant racing provisions that were about to expire. With the rate structure, bonus depreciation and QBI all made permanent, the question moves from what you can salvage before December to what structure serves the business over the next five years. That is a better question, and a better one to sit with in October than in April.
For a review of your 2026 position before year-end, reach us at info@globalxadvisors.com.
Written for general guidance across the US, UK, and GCC. Thresholds and deadlines differ by jurisdiction and change often, so check your own position with an advisor before acting on it.
