What changed, what is due, and what to do about it.

The fourth 2026 estimated payment is due Friday, January 15, 2027. There are two ways out of writing that check: file the 2026 return by February 1 and pay the balance with it, or — if two-thirds of your gross income came from farming or fishing — pay it all by January 15, or file by March 1 and pay in full.

The 1099 threshold is now $2,000. It was $600 for forty years. Contractor pay on the 1099-NEC and most 1099-MISC boxes only get reported above $2,000, and backup withholding uses the same number. Two did not move: royalties are still $10, and gross proceeds to an attorney are still $600.

Pull your contractor list before December and make sure you have a name, an address and a TIN for every one of them. Chasing a W-9 in January is how 1099 season goes wrong.

The §179 expensing limit is $2,560,000 for tax years beginning in 2026, with the phase-out starting at $4,090,000 of property placed in service. The SUV limit is $32,000. Bonus depreciation is a permanent 100% first-year deduction on eligible property acquired after January 19, 2025.

All of this is about when you take the deduction, not whether. The thing that trips people is placed in service — not ordered, not paid for, not sitting on a truck. In service, by December 31.

Call us before you buy, not after. After, we are just reporting what you already did.

Section 1062 lets a seller of qualified farmland pay the tax on the gain in four equal annual installments, for qualified sales in tax years beginning after July 4, 2025.

It is narrow. The land has to have been used or leased for farming for substantially all of the prior ten years, the sale has to carry an enforceable restriction keeping it in farming for ten years afterward, the buyer has to be an individual actively engaged in farming, and Form 1062 has to be filed with the return by its due date including extensions. Miss an installment and the rest can accelerate.

It spreads the tax out. It does not reduce it. Treasury issued proposed regulations in September, so the details can still move.

Since January 1, 2026 there is a 1% federal excise tax on certain transfers sent out of the country, and whether you owe it comes down entirely to how you paid. Taxed: cash, a money order, a cashier’s check or a traveler’s check — or a personal or business check the provider cashed to fund the transfer. Not taxed: money out of an account at a financial institution subject to Bank Secrecy Act rules, or a transfer funded with a debit or credit card.

You owe the tax; the transfer company collects it. So the question to ask at the counter is how your transfer is being funded, and whether the 1% came off.

Final regulations do not exist yet. You may rely on the proposed ones for post-2025 transfers, but only if you follow them in full — not the parts you like.