What a Proper Year-End Meeting Actually Covers

The year-end tax planning meeting is the most important client meeting of the year and the meeting most firms do worst. The standard version runs fifteen minutes in early December, covers whether to file an extension, and produces a loose estimate of what the April check will look like. No structural moves are made. No real conversation happens. The client leaves with the same tax posture they walked in with, minus forty-five minutes.

A proper year-end meeting takes an hour to ninety minutes, walks a specific checklist, and produces decisions. The decisions have calendar deadlines attached. Some of them save money the same year; some set up moves for the following year; some are structural and will compound over time. The client leaves with a written list of actions, dollar estimates for each, and an implementation timeline.

The checklist below is what we walk through. It is not exhaustive for every client, but each item applies to a meaningful fraction of our book, and skipping any of them unnecessarily leaves money on the table.

Projected income for the current year

The first thing is a real projection of current-year income. Not “what did you make last year plus a growth assumption.” What is the YTD number, what is the remaining quarter likely to produce, what is the full-year estimate with realistic assumptions about the Q4 close, and what does that mean for the tax liability.

This number drives everything else. A client who projects higher than last year needs retirement contribution planning, timing of deductions, and potentially estimated tax true-ups. A client projecting lower than last year has different moves: accelerating income, delaying deductions, adjusting Q4 estimates.

Without a real projection, the rest of the meeting is theatrical.

Retirement contribution optimization

For a business owner, retirement is the largest tax-advantaged deduction available. The question in December is not whether to contribute, it is how much and where.

Solo 401(k): For 2026, the combined employee-plus-employer contribution limit is $72,000 for under-50 participants, and $80,000 with the $8,000 catch-up for age 50-plus (participants aged 60 to 63 get a larger $11,250 catch-up if the plan allows it). The employee portion has to come from W-2 wages (for S-corp owners) or Schedule C earnings. The employer portion caps at 25 percent of compensation for S-corps or 20 percent of net SE income for Schedule C.

SEP IRA: Simpler administratively, but limited to 25 percent of compensation. For an owner who did not set up a 401(k) by year-end, a SEP can still be funded until the tax return due date (including extensions) and counts for the current year.

Defined benefit plan or cash balance plan: For high earners age 45-plus, a DB or cash balance plan stacked on a 401(k) can produce contribution capacity of $200,000 or more per year. The math depends on age, compensation, and existing retirement asset base. Since the SECURE Act, a new employer-funded plan can be adopted as late as the extended return due date and still count for the prior year; only elective deferrals require action by December 31. This is the most underused tool we see, and it is the highest-dollar move available for the right client.

The year-end conversation sizes the retirement contributions. Deferral elections have to be made before December 31, and even where the law allows a retroactive plan adoption, the funding has to be real cash by the deadline. Running this conversation in December rather than at filing time is the difference between a deliberate $280,000 deduction and a scramble.

Entity and structure review

Has anything changed this year that should reopen the entity conversation? A partner joined or left. The business moved states. Revenue crossed a threshold. A second location opened. An exit conversation started.

If the structure still fits, this section is a five-minute confirmation. If the structure is drifting, this is where the restructuring work gets initiated. Most structure work takes months to implement properly, so identifying the need in December gives runway to execute before the next tax year.

Loss harvesting and unrealized gains

For clients with meaningful investment portfolios, the year-end meeting is the window to review unrealized gains and losses and decide what to realize. Tax-loss harvesting against realized gains elsewhere in the portfolio is one of the most mechanical tax moves available, and it frequently gets skipped because nobody is looking at the brokerage statements in December.

The related question for business owners is whether to realize capital gains intentionally in a low-income year. A client whose business income is down this year may have room to harvest capital gains at a lower rate than in future years. This requires a projection of full-year income and a read on the client’s capital gains expectations for the next few years.

Charitable timing

Clients with meaningful charitable giving benefit from timing, and the 2025 law raised the stakes. Starting in 2026, itemizers only deduct charitable gifts above a floor of 0.5 percent of AGI, and taxpayers in the top bracket get at most 35 cents of benefit per deductible dollar. Both changes reward concentration: a bunching strategy (two or three years of gifts pushed into one) clears the AGI floor once instead of losing a slice to it every year, and a donor-advised fund captures the deduction now while distributing the grants over time. Non-itemizers now get a modest above-the-line deduction ($1,000 single, $2,000 joint), which changes the math only for smaller givers.

For donations of appreciated securities, the timing is important because the donation has to be completed before December 31 to count for the current year. Transfers of appreciated stock to a donor-advised fund often have processing lag. Starting the conversation in early December gives room; starting in late December creates urgency and sometimes missed deadlines.

QBI deduction analysis

Section 199A Qualified Business Income deduction is mechanical for non-SSTB businesses and complicated for SSTB owners near the phase-out thresholds. The year-end meeting is the window to model the QBI calculation given the current year’s income and decide whether any moves (retirement contributions, income timing, entity adjustments) are worth making to optimize the deduction.

For clients in the SSTB phase-out range, small moves in taxable income can produce large changes in QBI deduction. A $10,000 retirement contribution that pulls taxable income back into the phase-out range can be worth $6,000 to $7,000 in federal tax reduction once the restored QBI deduction is counted, roughly double the deduction’s face value. These opportunities only show up if someone runs the calculation.

Estimated tax recalibration

The Q4 estimate is due January 15. If the client’s actual income is materially different from what the prior year’s safe harbor assumed, adjusting the Q4 estimate can avoid underpayment penalties or prevent overpayment.

For clients who have had a big year relative to prior, the safe harbor (110 percent of prior year’s tax, for high-income filers) may be meaningfully less than the actual liability. Paying only the safe harbor means a large April balance due, penalty-free but still a check that has to clear. Paying toward current-year actual smooths the cash and removes the April surprise.

For clients who have had a worse year, the prior safe harbor may overpay. Recalibrating the Q4 downward frees up cash and avoids oversized refunds in April.

PTET readiness for next year

For partnerships and S-corps eligible for PTET, the year-end meeting is where next year’s election gets discussed. Was the current year’s election beneficial? Are there any changes (partner mix, income levels, NYC residency changes) that affect the decision for next year? Does the quarterly payment schedule need adjustment?

The election has to be made by March 15 (March 16 in 2026). Having the conversation in December leaves time for the year-end analysis, January modeling, and February decision, rather than a March scramble.

Succession, partner-change, and life-event considerations

This is the section that most firms skip entirely. Are partners getting close to retirement? Is an owner considering a sale? Is there a pending divorce, death in the family, new child, or other life event that affects the tax picture? Is there a real estate transaction in contemplation?

None of these are urgent on December 20. All of them benefit from being surfaced early so the tax and financial implications can be planned. A partner retiring in three years has a different buyout structure than a partner retiring next year. A business owner considering a sale in two years has different entity positioning moves than one with no exit contemplated.

What this meeting actually produces

A proper year-end meeting produces a one-page action list: item, dollar impact, deadline, owner. Some items close out the current tax year. Some set up the next tax year. Some initiate multi-year structural work. All of them have a name and a date.

The meeting that produces this list is the meeting that changes outcomes. The fifteen-minute meeting that does not is the one that leaves the client exactly where they were.

The difference shows up on the April return.

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. The topics discussed depend on specific facts and current law, both of which change. A proper analysis of your situation requires professional review. Contact us to discuss whether this applies to your business.