As 2025 draws to a close, several important financial deadlines are fast approaching. Whether you’re looking to reduce your tax liability, optimize retirement contributions, or ensure your estate plan reflects your current wishes, the decisions you make before December 31 can have lasting impact. At REDW, our approach integrates wealth management, tax planning, and estate planning to address the complex needs of high-net-worth individuals and families. Below, we’ve outlined five key areas where proactive year-end planning—coordinated across your tax and wealth strategies—can strengthen your financial position and set you up for success in 2026.
1. Investment Alignment & Tax-Loss Harvesting
The final trading days of the year offer an important opportunity: tax-loss harvesting. By selling investments at a loss before December 31, you may be able to offset realized gains and reduce your taxable income for 2025.
A year-end investment review is about more than chasing performance. It’s about ensuring your portfolio remains aligned with your long-term goals, risk tolerance, and tax situation. Sometimes a rebalance or shift toward more tax-efficient strategies can preserve more of what you’ve earned.
At REDW, we coordinate investment and tax planning to make sure every decision connects. Reviewing now ensures you enter the new year with a portfolio that’s both purposeful and efficient.
While tax-loss harvesting addresses your investment portfolio, year-end is also the critical window for retirement account decisions.
2. Retirement Contributions & Required Minimum Distributions
Two key retirement deadlines arrive on December 31:
401(k) Contributions
Employee deferrals must be made by year-end to count for 2025. The contribution limit is $23,000 for 2025, with an additional $7,500 catch-up contribution available for those age 50 and older. If you haven’t maximized your contributions yet, now is the time to confirm your deferral rate with your employer.
Looking ahead, these limits will increase to $24,500 (standard) and $8,000 (catch-up) in 2026, with a special additional catch-up contribution available for those aged 60-63.
Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
If you’re 73 or older, or have an inherited IRA, you must withdraw the required amount by December 31 to avoid a 25% penalty on the amount not withdrawn.
Even if you’re not subject to RMDs, year-end is the right time to confirm contribution levels, review your investment mix, and consider Roth conversions. These strategies can all strengthen your retirement plan.
At REDW Wealth, we integrate retirement planning with tax strategy, so you not only grow your savings but also distribute them wisely when the time comes.
3. Charitable Giving Strategies
If philanthropy is part of your financial plan, December 31 is your deadline to make charitable gifts that qualify for this year’s tax deduction. Whether you give cash, appreciated stock, or contribute to a donor-advised fund, timing matters.
Qualified Charitable Distributions: A Strategy for Retirees
If you’re 70½ or older, Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) offer a particularly tax-efficient way to support charitable causes. A QCD allows you to donate up to $108,000 directly from your IRA to a qualified charity in 2025. For married couples, each spouse can contribute this amount from their own IRA.
The donation counts toward your Required Minimum Distribution, and while you won’t receive a charitable deduction, the withdrawal isn’t included in your adjusted gross income. This can be especially valuable if you don’t itemize deductions or if keeping your AGI lower helps you avoid other tax complications. Note that QCDs cannot be made to donor-advised funds or private foundations, they can only be made to operating charities .
A trusted financial advisor can help with the processing and distribution of QCD funds from your IRA, ensuring forms are accurate to avoid unintended taxable distributions, and providing education on the concept and actionable steps for implementation.
At REDW Wealth, we help align generosity with strategy. By choosing the right vehicle, from charitable trusts to gifting appreciated assets, you can maximize the impact of your giving while reducing taxable income. Charitable planning can also be a powerful way to engage family in conversations about values and legacy. A thoughtful approach ensures your giving is more than a transaction and is part of your story.
While giving is one form of strategic wealth transfer, annual gifting and education funding offer additional opportunities.
Annual Gifting & Education Planning
Annual Gift Exclusion
The IRS allows up to $19,000 per individual in annual gifts for 2025 without using your lifetime exemption. For married couples, this means you can jointly gift up to $38,000 to any individual without gift tax implications. The lifetime estate and gift tax exemption is $13.99 million per individual for 2025. But if you don’t act by December 31, this year’s annual exclusion opportunity is lost.
529 College Savings Plans
Year-end is also a chance to make contributions to 529 college savings plans. In states such as Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Oregon contributions made before December 31 qualify for state tax benefits that vary. These gifts can support education for children or grandchildren while lowering your tax bill.
At REDW Wealth, we ensure gifting strategies are integrated with your broader estate and legacy plan. That means every dollar gifted supports not only your loved ones but also your long-term wealth strategy.
Strategic gifting is just one component of comprehensive estate planning, which deserves year-end attention even without an IRS deadline.
5. Estate & Legacy Planning
Unlike contributions or distributions, estate planning doesn’t come with an IRS deadline. But year-end is the perfect time to ensure your documents reflect your current goals, family circumstances, and tax environment. Current federal estate, gift, and GST exemptions are at historically high levels, and scheduled adjustments beginning in 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA or H.R. 1) make this a timely moment to revisit your estate plan. While tax laws can change over time, building flexibility into your plan and reviewing it regularly helps ensure your strategy remains effective even as the legislative landscape evolves.
An estate plan that’s outdated or incomplete can create uncertainty for those you care about. Reviewing wills, trusts, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney each year ensures your wishes are clear and your wealth is protected.
REDW’s multidisciplinary professionals work closely as wealth advisors, CPAs, and attorneys to harmonize your estate planning with trusted tax, business, and investment strategies. Our Tax and Estate Planning team assists clients with comprehensive estate plan reviews, transfer-tax and gifting strategies, trust administration and fiduciary income tax planning, succession planning for business owners, and integrated charitable and legacy planning. Done thoughtfully, our approach of combined expertise is one of the most meaningful steps you can take to protect your legacy.
Take Action Before December 31
Year-end financial planning requires coordination across multiple areas of your wealth. Whether you need to review investment positions, confirm retirement contributions, optimize charitable gifts, execute annual gifting strategies, or update estate documents, the REDW team is here to help you navigate these decisions with confidence. Reach out to your relationship manager to schedule a year-end planning meeting.
Contact REDW Wealth today to schedule your year-end wealth planning review.
© 2025 REDW Wealth LLC. This publication is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. Information and instruction shared in the article above do not guarantee outcomes, performance, or quality of services provided to REDW Wealth Management clients by REDW Wealth Management or its employees. Adherence to our fiduciary duty is not a guarantee of client satisfaction or any particular outcome.
