Financial Opportunities Uncovered: A Keeler & Nadler Family Wealth Podcast
Come take a journey with us as we explore topics and concepts from the obscure to those hiding in plain sight, so obvious that you wonder how you missed the low lying fruit. Financial planner and host Andy Keeler and his team, thought leaders, and guests discuss everything from maximizing your money and lowering taxes to how to gain the upper hand in an auction and the math behind online gambling. We discuss wealth building strategies and wander into deeper aspects of the human mind that can improve or inhibit our ability to build wealth with confidence.
Financial Opportunities Uncovered: A Keeler & Nadler Family Wealth Podcast
If Your CPA Was Not Proactive on Your Tax Return, Who Pays? You Do
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A lot of tax advice sounds smart until you run the numbers on a real return. Andy welcomes Abby Rose, CPA, CFP® and Director of Tax at Keeler and Nadler, to translate the biggest 2025 tax changes into practical moves.
This isn't pie in the sky advice either; this is clear, actionable expertise to protect your family, your nest egg and to stop overpaying the IRS.
We dig into what it means to permanently extend the 2017 tax rates, and why the jump in the SALT cap from $10,000 to $40,000 can bring itemized deductions back to life. Abby explains deduction lumping (also called deduction bunching) with clear examples: shifting property tax payments and charitable giving into the right year can create a bigger itemized deduction, then you can switch back to the standard deduction the following year. We also talk donor advised funds and why they can be a powerful strategy in a high-income year.
Next, we unpack the new and easily misunderstood rules around charitable deductions in 2026. Then, we clarify common confusion around “no tax on tips” and “no tax on overtime". Plus, what happens with the estate tax exemption now near $15 million per person?
The big theme is this: proactive planning before year end beats discovering missed opportunities after your CPA files.
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The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations.
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Keeler & Nadler Family Wealth is a registered investment adviser. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Keeler & Nadler Family Wealth and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. No advice may be rendered by Keeler & Nadler Family Wealth unless a client service agreement is in place.
Welcome And What Changed In 2025
SPEAKER_01Today on Financial Opportunities Uncovered, our very own Abby Rose will share how the most significant changes in the tax bill passed in 2025 have affected our clients here at Keeler and now their family wealth. Abby is a CPA and our director of tax. If you follow our podcast, you may recall that Abby shared the highlights of last year's tax bill called, Well, Love It or Hate It, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Abby, welcome back.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for indulging me again on taxes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, you are the director of tax. So for those of us short on memory, can you share some of the mainstream changes that affect most individual filers? Changes that were implemented under that tax act.
Using Deduction Lumping To Itemize
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah, one of the biggest ones is just permanently extending the 2017 tax rates. So that was the biggest one. They were set to sunset and they made those permanent now. So the lower tax rates are now permanent. Um, so some of the newer things that have changed as well, they did have a state and local income tax cap, which we call the SALT cap. Used to be 10,000. They've increased it to 40,000. No, it is a big difference. Of course, there's true phase-outs and whatnot, but that's a pretty big, big difference, which gives us a lot of flexibility with things that we call like deduction lumping, which I know we'll get into. Um, but a lot of opportunities for high income earners, so we can get more deductions than we were able to do previously.
SPEAKER_01Let's dig into this lumping idea a little bit.
SPEAKER_00It's a good one. It's uh comes in all shapes and sizes. So I'll give an example. I was just working with a client who their Schedule A itemized deductions were$36,000.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So the standard deduction for 2026 is$32,200. So let's just assume in 2026 everything stays the exact same as last year. For example, they were$4,000 over the standard deduction.
SPEAKER_01So they'd itemize?
SPEAKER_00Sure. They'd itemize by$4,000. Now they paid in$12,000 property taxes, they gave a bunch to charity. So they're really only benefiting from a tax perspective by$4,000. Because had they not itemized, they would have gotten the$32,000 regardless.
SPEAKER_01Got it. There were categories within that$36,000 where they exceeded a limit. Right. In this example, it's a$10,000 limit. Right. So if their their um home mortgage interest was$15,000, they only got the benefit of$10 of them.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So how does lumping help them?
SPEAKER_00So and sometimes we'll lump them, meaning, you know, in 2026, for example, let's double pay your property taxes, let's double pay your charitable giving and take a kind of supercharged itemized deduction. And then the next year after that, we'll take the standard. You're not really losing much of a benefit in the two years because you're able to deduct more in one year. And then you're still getting the highest standard deduction in the next year. So one of the scenarios I ran, you know, this client in particular, they had$12,000 of property taxes, they had$5,000 of charitable donations. So if we just kind of double that up, for example, um, they're able to itemize by$12,000 rather than the four that we previously talked about. So they're benefiting by$8,000, which if you're in the 32% tax rate, that's$2,500. And we're not necessarily telling you to do anything different than what you're doing. It's just, hey, pay it in December instead of January. It's it's not really money out of your pocket. Sure. Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01So uh I'm curious when you're reviewing tax returns for clients. So these aren't returns that you've filed. Right. These are returns that their CPA has filed. I'm curious how many times you've run across a situation where the client was told ahead of the end of the year to lump.
SPEAKER_00Never. Not very often. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So a lot of missed opportunities.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and even I think a lot of people nowadays don't even give their CPAs the Schedule A deductions because they all just assume they're going to take the standard deduction. Because with the cap, the$10,000 cap, they were taking the standard because again, they might pay$10,000 to Ohio and$20,000 of property taxes and they can only deduct 10. So a lot of people weren't itemizing with this cap. And so I've actually had clients that say, Hey, I didn't even give you my charitable donations. I didn't give you my my mortgage interest. I said, no, give it to me. If I don't need it because you still take the standard, I that's fine, but I want to look and get these opportunities maybe for with some deduction lumping.
SPEAKER_01Um, Abby, do you know the title of our podcast? What's it called?
SPEAKER_00Financial opportunities uncovered.
Donor Advised Funds For Big Years
SPEAKER_01You just uncovered a financial opportunity.
SPEAKER_00Ding ding ding. Yeah. And and two, you know, we're talking a lot about property taxes and charitable giving. Charitable giving is huge. I mean, there's we've talked about donor-advised funds on this podcast, probably every podcast at this point. Um, so that's a big player in the deduction lumping. If somebody is going to have a really big income year, for example, let's take five years worth of charitable donations, put it in a donor-advised fund, save you a lot of tax. So it, the raising of the salt limit that we call it, the state and local income tax, is a really big game changer.
SPEAKER_01It's great advice. What other relevant provisions did the tax bill include?
SPEAKER_00One of the other biggest ones is the senior deduction. So I'm sorry for that term. It's not my term. I don't think just because you're 65, you're a senior, but that's that's their terminology. It's$6,000 per person. So$12,000 for a married filing joint couple. Um, that is not permanent. So that's one thing I like to tell folks. There's some permanent and non-permanent changes to the tax bill. So this one at this time is set to end in 2028. Now, obviously, there could be another provision passed to extend it, but at this point, it's only from 2025 through 2028.
SPEAKER_01Got it. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And there's income limit phase outs like everything else with the tax bill.
SPEAKER_01What are those phase outs for that one?
SPEAKER_00So for single individuals, it's between 75,000 and 175,000 is when it begins to phase out. So um, and then married filing jointly is almost double that. It's 150 to 250.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Another big one, so we're talking about charity, is they have enacted starting in 2026 a floor limit to the charitable donations. So it's 0.5% floor of your adjusted gross income. Now, what that means is they'll take 0.5% of your adjusted gross income and anything over that dollar amount is deductible.
SPEAKER_01Got it.
SPEAKER_00So it's kind of like if people remember like the medical.
SPEAKER_01Right. 7.5%.
SPEAKER_00It's the exact same concept. Okay. Um, so that is new for 2026. And then still along the charitable deduction line, they also enacted a non-itemizer charitable deduction option option. So if you don't itemize and get that benefit of the charitable donations, starting in 2026, you can take a thousand dollar per person deduction for non-itemizers for charitable giving.
SPEAKER_01So married filing a joint would be$2,000.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. And there's that's cool. There's key distinctions there, of course. There, you know, you can't give money to a donor-advised fund and also count as a as that charitable donation. Um, it's also an above-the-line deduction, which is an important thing to denote because it reduces your adjusted gross income. So I know we talk about Irma every single time I'm on the podcast, uh, but it can help with Irma.
SPEAKER_01So what is IRMA again?
SPEAKER_00So it's the income-related medical Medicare adjustment, which as your income goes higher, they charge you a surcharge on Medicare premiums. So this is a big one because when we talk about ways to reduce Irma, this can play a role in that. Obviously, it's$2,000, not$20,000, but it can make a big difference. So, Andy, I've got another one that I feel like people aren't really talking about too too much, which is a cap for high income earners.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So for charitable giving, and they're saying that even if you're in the 37% tax bracket, you're only going to get a 35% deduction.
SPEAKER_01Leave it to the IRS to screw stuff.
Tips Overtime And Estate Exemption
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I mean 2%, it's not terrible, but it's every every percentage counts if you're a high income earner, especially. So um, so then some of the other ones that I think are big and and talked about um the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. You can deduct up to$25,000 from tip income, and then$12,500 per person for overtime. Again, there's income phase outs,$150 for single,$300,000 for married filing joint. And then another big one um is the estate tax exemption. So that was supposed to sunset back to about$7 million from the almost$15 million that it was previously. And they have extended that. So now it's$15 million per person of exemptions from estate taxes, which is huge.
SPEAKER_01That's big. Yes.$30 million. Then no tax on tips and overtime. I think that's how a lot of people describe it. There's no tax on tips and overtime. But the way you're describing it is there are you just get a$25,000 deduction from your tip income before it's taxed. And with overtime, you get a$12,500 deduction. So anything over that, you are going to pay taxes.
SPEAKER_00And it's still reported on your income. You still have to put your tip income on your tax return. It's not like you just ignore it now. It's still put on there. And then there's a duck deduction, and we'll we'll probably get to it a little bit, but I mentioned the kind of above the line, below the line kind of thing earlier. That's a below-the-line deduction. So again, that's a really big distinction because it doesn't reduce your adjusted gross income. So Irma doesn't care that you get a deduction on your tips. You know, they still are included from a Medicare perspective.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell So if you're a 66-year-old bartender, yeah, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Trump Accounts And Real World Friction
SPEAKER_01Not much you can do there, I guess. Not much you could do. One of the things we've heard a little bit about are Trump accounts. We're getting some questions from clients about Trump accounts. Seems like there's kind of a uh muddy water there. What's the basic concept behind a Trump account?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell They're essentially custodial IRAs for minors. So when you think about if somebody came to us and said, I want to open an IRA for my kid, you know, they have to have earned income. Right. There's an in there's a cap to it every year of how much you can put in. This is essentially saying we can start a IRA for a child, even if they don't have income yet.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So there's another couple caveats to it. If your child's born between 2025 and 2028, the government is set to fund it with$1,000. Um additional contributions can be made, supposedly, by individuals and charities and employers. There's a lot of things around withdrawals, though. So there's a lot of things we don't know yet. I mean, we can't even open these accounts until July of this year. So there's there's not much that we know about the how it's funded, how it's opened, where is it open? You know, we don't even know where these accounts are technically going to be opened yet. But what we do know is that the government themselves are opening the account for you. So, you know, it's not like I go open a Schwab account for myself. This is I fill out a form, get sent into the government, the government opens an account for me, and then I get the details at some point.
SPEAKER_01Um like sort of treasury direct.
SPEAKER_00Kind of, yeah. Yeah. And and supposedly once the accounts open, you can transfer it, but we just don't know. I mean, we haven't seen it in practice yet. So it has some benefits because again, you can maybe start an IRA for, you know, I've got a three, three-year-old twins and a five-year-old daughter. So, you know, if I can kickstart their retirement, then then maybe there's something there. But it's just a little too early for us to to know enough about them in the process.
SPEAKER_01And if the child wasn't born between 2025 and 2028, you don't get the thousand dollars. Correct.
SPEAKER_00You can open the account, but it's not gonna be pre-funded essentially.
SPEAKER_01No free money.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And so, you know, you kind of ask the qu have to ask the question, would I do that or just do a five year exactly?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And when it comes to s sending in paperwork to the government, I want to get off topic a little bit and share a true story about me. So Treasury Bonds, I bonds were paying, I think, eight percent back in like 2021 or so. And so I opened a Treasury Direct account for my wife and I, funded it with$10,000. And we told a lot of our clients to do the same thing. But the the yield on those I bonds has now fallen to like three or three percent. So I start in December, I log into my account and I was like, I want to sell these bonds, I want to redeem them and I want the money. The$10,000 had grown to about$11,500. So I go to execute and they had an old bank account assigned to that account. So you have to download a form, which has to be either notarized or uh medallion signature, I think it was medallion signature guaranteed. So I did that. Let's say December 12th. Uh here we are, March, middle of March, and the money has not hit my bank account yet. So I would say, you know, if you're not getting a thousand bucks free from Uncle Sammy, let's look at other options.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if I want to be the guinea pig there. So, you know, I we'll we'll keep we're keeping up with it, obviously, to know, and we're getting a lot of questions on it. A lot of clients have reached out about it, but I think till we can physically open an account, it's really hard to even know the structure of it. And, you know, what does it mean moving it from this custodian that they haven't even disclosed yet to where can it go from there that I can actually see it every day?
Client Confusion Social Security And Forms
SPEAKER_01Yep, you got it. All right. So some pretty significant changes like the thousand dollar charitable deduction for those that don't itemize. That's pretty cool. And some brand new concepts like the senior deduction, even though we don't like the name. What are some of the common questions that this has raised with clients?
SPEAKER_00You know, can I itemize now? I've never itemized before, or I haven't itemized in 10 years, is a big one. So I know we answered that. Yes, a lot more folks can itemize now with the higher state and local income cap. Um, social security isn't taxable, is a phrase I hear a lot. Um, so a lot of people, and I think when they first talked about the bill, one of the headlines was no tax on social security. Um, and that's not true. Your social security is fully taxable, up to 85%. So the senior deduction, I think, is misled sometimes as no tax on social security. But an important distinction is that's available to anybody who's 65 and over. So even if you're not on social security, you get this senior deduction. Um, so I think it's a way for them to kind of mitigate the no tax on social security, but your social security is still very much taxable.
SPEAKER_01Okay. It's good clarification.
SPEAKER_00And then um, another thing that we hear a lot is, you know, where are these deductions? Where do these deductions go? You know, the the postcard tax return isn't really a postcard anymore because things are kind of added every year.
SPEAKER_01Great in theory.
QCDs And Smarter Giving Planning
SPEAKER_00Um, so there's a new schedule A-1 that they've added to the 2026 tax return. And that's kind of, I just call it the catch-all schedule because it has all these things that we're talking about. So it has the senior deduction, the tax on tips deduction, the student or the car loan interest deduction, the no tax on overtime. It's got all of those just thrown on there. And again, you know, I think I mentioned it earlier, it's a below the line deduction. So it's just kind of lumped all up in there on the schedule A-1. And then the last big question we hear is is regarding the estate tax. So, you know, do I have to worry about my taxable estate? Um, not as much anymore. I mean, it's still, you know, we still have individuals that could run into this issue, but 15 million is a big number per person when originally it was going to sunset back to seven million per person, you know, we're getting double what we really thought we would be getting. So uh estate tax is certainly something we keep an eye on, but it's it's a lot less of an issue than it used to be probably 10, 15 years ago.
SPEAKER_01So between the lumping concept, the thousand dollar charitable deduction for those that take the standard deduction, are you getting other questions about charitable giving strategies?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So the the 0.5% floor can kind of be a little bit of a sticky point. Uh because we talk about the deduction lumping, but we have to factor that in, that if we give more to the donor-advised fund, there is kind of some that's shaved off the bottom with that floor. Um so it's very situationally dependent. You know, if we want to look at what's the purpose of the charitable giving? Is it something like I just need the highest tax rate? Well, that's where something like a donor-advised fund and the deduction lumping can come in. Um, is it I don't need my RMDs and I'm 70 and a half? Maybe we look at qualified charitable donations. So it's very situationally dependent, it's age dependent. Um, but it's, you know, these changes have certainly allowed us the flexibility to kind of look at the deduction lumping versus QCDs again, that we didn't have as much of an option before because people weren't itemizing as much before.
SPEAKER_01So you mentioned QCDs. Can you get into that a little bit more?
SPEAKER_00Yep. So QCDs, which stands for qualified charitable distribution, um, are available to those that are 70 and a half. And I get the question all the time: where does 70 and a half come from? And it's the old RMD age that they've never changed and adjusted up. Uh so that is still very much 70 and a half.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So if somebody is 70 and a half, they can actually give money from their IRA directly to charity. And it's not counted as a charitable deduction. So it's actually separate from these itemized charitable deductions. It's separate from the thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_01Do you still get the thousand?
SPEAKER_00No. Okay. You can't I'll explain why. Okay. But um, so that's completely separate from these. Essentially, what it does is if I sent you$1,000 and you wrote a check to charity, you're gonna get a$1099 for a thousand dollars. It's gonna go in the front of your$1040. And then theoretically, you'll get a deduction either on your schedule A or this$1,000.
SPEAKER_01Abby, you must be a CPA. Do you actually file taxes? Oh, yeah. You know, like every schedule online. But anyway, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Except for my own, which gets filed on April 14th.
SPEAKER_01So Carpenter's house is the last one to get finished.
SPEAKER_00Um, so the the QCDs are really nice because it actually just never shows up on your 1040. You get this 1099 and we reduce that taxable amount by the QCD given. So it doesn't show up on your 1040, right? Which can help with Irma because it's not going on the front and adding to AGI.
What Hits Returns And Who Wins
SPEAKER_01Okay. So with all of the stuff that came down the pike last year with this new tax bill, how is it translating into an actual tax return filing?
SPEAKER_00Well, and you kind of mentioned it earlier, you know, are you getting tax returns and they're being told before that they could do deduction lumping? You know, these happened in July of 2025. So there was a short period of time that we could small window, we could do some things. But also a lot of these things aren't in enacted until 2026.
SPEAKER_01So the twenty so the 2026 return filed in 2027.
SPEAKER_00Correct. So like the thousand dollar per person non-itemizer charitable donation doesn't go into effect until this year.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So there wasn't as much leniency with, you know, do we do we not itemize because we get this? There wasn't that option.
SPEAKER_01Got it.
SPEAKER_00Um the salt cap changed in 2025. So there was options there to say, hey, let's give more to charity before the end of the year.
SPEAKER_01And that's a big one.
SPEAKER_00Exactly, especially with the floor coming in. Some of the times we actually kind of pushed forward some of the deductions this year because we didn't want that 0.5% charitable floor that it is coming into play this year. Um, so I know there's there's a lot of different timelines. So, and I mentioned earlier the Trump accounts, they're not starting until July of this year. So it's there were some things we could do, but some things it's like, hey, this is going into effect, but we can't really do anything about it because it's a 2026 tax issue.
SPEAKER_01Where are we seeing the biggest benefits for clients?
SPEAKER_00The enhanced senior deduction is probably one of the bigger ones for for it individuals 65 and older. And the main reason is you don't need to do anything. You just need to be 65, and as long as your income allows, you get it.
SPEAKER_01It's six thousand a piece, six thousand, twelve thousand total. Yeah. So that's that's a pretty big deal.
SPEAKER_00Big deal. Yeah, it's a it's a big dollar amount for somebody again in the 24% tax bracket. That's a pretty good savings.
SPEAKER_01And that's a deduction, it's not a credit or a refund. Yes. You ain't getting that check for$12,000.
SPEAKER_00No, exactly. But it's, you know, reducing your social security, it's reducing your earned income if you've got it. So it's it's a good, it's a good thing to have and it's beneficial to a lot of people. Um, I know I've harped on it. The salt cap, that's huge. You know, we're we're happy with that. And then just the permanent extension of lower tax rates, you know, before they were going to go back up a few percentage each. So everybody's really benefiting from the permanent extension there of the lower tax rates. And then lastly, you know, the thousand dollar per person. It's not that it people were discouraged from charitable giving before, but somewhat. There was no tax benefit to it. So some people might not have done tax charitable giving. So now I think it encourages that again for folks. That's good. Because there's at least some, you know, a thousand bucks per person is better than zero.
SPEAKER_01So that's great. Are we seeing anything that's hurting clients?
SPEAKER_00Everything's charitable related today, I guess. That's uh that's all the big stuff today. But the the AGI floor, that 0.5% floor, can can be a pretty big doozy to folks. So, you know, I I laid out some examples earlier trying to get some math in my head about it. And for somebody making$500,000 a year, let's say they gave$2,000 to charity, they wouldn't deduct any of it because the floor is$2,500 in that scenario. Um, or somebody that's making$250,000, they'd have to make over$1200,$1,250 of donations just to deduct a dollar. So those can be big, big dollars, you know, for depending on what your AGI is. So there's a lot of planning because it's a big puzzle that you have to put together. Um, you know, one domino effect of an IRA distribution can affect your charitable donations and how much you can deduct there. So there's a lot of ripple effects to the planning world.
Proactive Tax Advice And Closing
SPEAKER_01So you know, I always tell clients that we need to spend more time on things within our control and less time worrying about things that I always tell clients that we need to spend more time on things within our control and less time worrying about things we can't. And one of the things that should be heard loud and clear from what Abby's saying is if your CPA is not giving you proactive advice on how to take advantage of these new rules, you're being shortchanged. And if you're a CPA listening, I'm gonna call you lazy if you're not doing it. Abby, thanks for sharing some actionable strategies focused. Abby, thanks for sharing some actionable strategies that folks can actually use. No. Abby, thanks for sharing some actionable strategies folks can use to truly get ahead. And as always, we thank our listeners. I'm Andy Keeler, and this is Financial Opportunities Uncovered, brought to you by Keeler and Nadler Family Wealth. If you have questions on anything you heard in this episode or have an idea for a future episode, connect with us on LinkedIn or email me at andy.keeler at knwealth.com.