Here is the thing about lowering this year’s tax bill: most of the moves have to happen before December 31, not in April when you file. Once the year closes, the window closes with it.
None of these four require a finance degree. They require clean enough books to see where you stand, and a few decisions made while the calendar still allows them.
Move 1: Catch up your books before the year closes
If your books are behind, this is the move that unlocks the other three, because you cannot time purchases or plan payments against numbers you do not have.
Behind by a few months is normal, and fixable in a couple of focused sessions. Behind by most of a year is where it gets expensive: rushed cleanup in tax season costs more, gets less attention, and usually means missed deductions that were sitting in your statements all along.
Catch up now and you get two things: clean numbers for tax prep, and a real picture of your profit while there is still time to do something about it.
Move 2: Time your purchases
If the business needs equipment, vehicles, computers, or supplies in the next few months anyway, buying before December 31 can move the deduction into this year.
Current rules are unusually generous here: most equipment placed in service this year can be fully deducted in the year of purchase rather than depreciated over many years. That can meaningfully change this year’s taxable profit.
Two cautions. First, buy what the business actually needs; a deduction is a discount, not free money. Second, “placed in service” matters, not just ordered, so December 30 deliveries cut it close.
Move 3: Get your contractor list ready
Anyone you paid for services this year may need a 1099-NEC in January, and the January scramble is always about information you could have collected months earlier.
Note the updated rule: for payments made in 2026, the 1099 reporting threshold is now $2,000 for the year, up from the old $600 (it adjusts for inflation in future years). So the list to build is: everyone you paid for services, the total for each, and a W-9 on file for each of them. Collect W-9s even from people under the threshold, because year totals have a way of growing.
Forms go to recipients and the IRS by February 1, 2027. The list you make in November is the reason that deadline is boring.
Move 4: Look at your entity and payroll before January
If your profit grew this year, the structure that made sense when you started may be leaving money on the table now. The classic example is an LLC owner whose profit has reached the level where an S-corp election and a reasonable salary would change the math.
This is a conversation to have with your tax professional, and the reason it is on a December list is that some elections and payroll changes work much better set up before the new year starts than patched in later.
What we bring to that conversation: books clean enough that the decision is based on real numbers, and a monthly report that shows whether the change is doing what it promised.
The common thread
Every one of these moves depends on knowing your real numbers before the year ends. That is what monthly bookkeeping actually buys you: December decisions made with October information, instead of April regrets about a year you could not see.
If you want a second pair of eyes on your year-end position, that is exactly what our free call is for.
Pick any open slot. No forms, no phone tag, no upfront payment.
General information, not tax advice. Talk to your tax professional about your specific situation.