What to Know for the 2025 Tax Filing Season, and What to Keep in Mind for 2026

If tax season feels a bit different this year, you're not alone. 2025 is the first full filing cycle under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which stabilizes tax brackets and income thresholds that were previously set to expire. That stability offers a clearer multiyear planning environment, but it also means income, deductions, and timing decisions may have new implications.

This article highlights what's changed under OBBBA and provides a step-by-step set of questions to help you prepare with your advisor's guidance. We'll close with a brief look at what to keep in mind as you plan ahead for 2026. As documents roll in, including late-arriving K-1s or corrected 1099s, it's a reminder that tax planning is not a once-year-activity, but an ongoing part of a comprehensive wealth strategy.

Gathering Documents For Your 2025 Return

Tax documents often arrive in stages, especially when there's complex investment activity involved. Partnership K-1s and amended forms often arrive later in the season, which can delay final calculations or prompt updates to earlier assumptions. Getting organized early helps create room for better decision-making as filing approaches, particularly under the OBBBA, where income levels may interact differently with stabilized brackets and thresholds.

As you begin assembling documents, it's helpful to take stock of how your income picture has changed and where additional forms may still be outstanding. Early awareness of shifts in compensation, portfolio income, or pass-through activity can help you and your advisor understand how your 2025 income aligns with OBBBA's updated framework.

Questions to consider:

• Have your income levels changed meaningfully in 2025, and how might that affect your tax bracket under OBBBA?
• Are you expecting late K‑1s or corrected 1099s from private investments, funds, or partnerships?
• Have you captured all interest, dividend, and distribution activity?

Review Investment Activity, Gains, and Losses

Investment activity can meaningfully influence your tax picture each year, and that's especially true under OBBBA's stabilized structure. Because brackets and thresholds now extend forward without the uncertainty of prior expirations, the timing and mix of income, including capital gains, losses, dividends, and interest, can have more lasting implications than before. Revisiting your 2025 portfolio decisions through this lens can help clarify how your investment activity may affect your filing and whether adjustments or strategic conversations are appropriate before finalizing your return.

It's also a good moment to look at how shifts in your investment income profile, such as changes in cash yields or distributions from private investments, fit within your broader plan. Understanding these dynamics early helps ensure your filing decisions support the long‑term strategy you've set with your advisory team.

Questions to consider:

• Did you realize significant capital gains or losses this year?
• Has your investment income profile changed (e.g., higher cash yields)?
• How do these outcomes align with your multi‑year planning strategy under OBBBA?

Understand How OBBBA Shapes Your Deduction Picture

Because OBBBA's changes preserved a deduction structure that rewards thoughtful timing, particularly around charitable giving, SALT, and other itemized categories, it's worth reassessing how your 2025 deductions align with your broader multiyear goals. Even familiar strategies can have new implications under OBBBA's stabilized environment, making this a good moment to revisit the cadence and composition of your deductible activity.

Taking inventory of your charitable contributions, investment interest, and state and local tax exposure can help you and your advisor determine whether your deductions naturally cluster in certain years or if shifting the timing could improve your overall tax outcome. These conversations are especially valuable now that OBBBA provides more clarity about brackets and thresholds over the coming years.

Questions to consider about deductions under OBBBA:

• How does your charitable giving in 2025 align with your broader tax strategy?
• Would tailoring the timing of contributions across years help optimize your deduction benefit under OBBBA?
• Do your deductions, including SALT, investment interest, and philanthropy, cluster more naturally in some years than others?

Revisit State and Local Tax (SALT) and PTET Considerations

Your State and Local Tax (SALT) exposure, and the role of tools like PTET elections, may look different this year depending on your income, state framework, and how phaseouts apply. Understanding how these elements interact with your federal picture can help you make more informed decisions as you prepare your return.

For clients in states with PTET regimes, evaluating whether an election affects the 2025 federal filing is essential. Even small adjustments in income timing or PTET strategy can have meaningful effects under OBBBA's stabilized framework.

Questions to consider about SALT eligibility and timing:

• How does your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) impact SALT eligibility or phaseouts?
• Does your state offer a PTET structure that affects your 2025 federal SALT picture?
• Are there state‑level timing nuances worth discussing with your CPA or advisor?

Review Retirement and Tax-Advantaged Accounts

With new contribution rules for retirement plans taking effect in 2026, including higher deferral and catch‑up limits and new Roth‑only requirements for certain high earners, this filing season is a good opportunity to revisit how these changes fit into your broader tax picture under OBBBA.

Because OBBBA stabilizes brackets and income thresholds, decisions you make now about pre-tax versus Roth contributions, how much to fund, or whether to consider a Roth conversion can have multiyear implications. Reviewing these choices alongside your advisor can help ensure your approach remains aligned with long‑term goals, liquidity needs, and evolving planning opportunities.

Questions to consider about retirement accounts:

• With higher contribution limits and new Roth‑only catch‑up rules taking effect in 2026 for high‑earning participants, could your mix of pre-tax and Roth contributions look different going forward?
• Does the way you fund retirement accounts align with your multiyear tax strategy under OBBBA's stabilized brackets?
• Would modeling a Roth conversion help clarify how today's decisions affect taxes in later years, especially around liquidity events or legacy planning?
• Do rising contribution limits change how much of your savings plan runs through tax‑advantaged accounts versus taxable or trust structures?

Coordinate Across Your Advisory Team

The interconnected nature of income timing, charitable giving, investment decisions, and SALT considerations becomes even more pronounced under OBBBA, making advisor coordination more valuable than ever. Ensuring alignment across your CPA, Wealth Advisor, and any other specialists helps avoid missed opportunities and keeps your planning strategy cohesive.

From multiyear income modeling to strategic questions like Roth conversions or charitable sequencing, this is an ideal time to ensure all members of your advisory team are working from the same set of assumptions and goals.

Questions to consider about coordinated tax decisions:

• Have you discussed whether any multiyear modeling scenarios are relevant (income timing, charitable sequencing, portfolio moves)?
• Are there strategic questions, such as whether a Roth conversion is worth exploring, that your CPA and Wealth Advisor should review together?
• Do your tax decisions align with your broader liquidity, estate, and investment goals?

Looking Ahead: What to Keep in Mind for the Rest of 2026

Even as you finalize your 2025 return, early 2026 often brings additional documents, particularly for individuals with complex partnership interests or private investments. This continued flow of information is a reminder that tax planning is not a once‑a‑year exercise, but an ongoing process shaped by income patterns, portfolio activity, and evolving personal and financial goals. With OBBBA offering a more predictable tax environment, planning ahead becomes easier.

Looking beyond this filing season, now is a good time to think through how anticipated income events, charitable plans, or investment decisions may interact with OBBBA's stabilized brackets and thresholds in the coming year. Revisiting estate, trust, or gifting strategies may also be beneficial, especially when coordinated across your advisory team.

Forward‑looking considerations:

• How might 2026 income or liquidity events interact with OBBBA's stabilized brackets and thresholds?
• Are you thinking about charitable, SALT, or investment strategies through a multiyear lens?
• Is this the right time to revisit estate, trust, or gifting conversations as part of a coordinated plan?

With a durable tax framework under OBBBA, and the guidance of a well‑coordinated advisory team, the 2025 filing process can set a strong foundation for the year ahead, aligning taxes with wealth planning and long‑term goals.

To learn more about how OBBBA may influence your broader estate and wealth‑transfer strategy, we encourage you to read Estate and Tax Planning After OBBBA, which outlines the legislation's implications for gifting, trusts, and multiyear planning.

If you'd like assistance assessing how these considerations fit into your overall balance sheet, liquidity needs, or long‑term objectives, contact our Citizens Private Bank team so we can help you evaluate your financial picture.