Wealthy families are making a final push to take advantage of major tax changes signed into law in July, with family offices racing to finalize estate planning, make charitable contributions, and structure investments before the calendar flips to 2026. 

These changes include a permanently higher exemption in the federal estate and gift tax, expanded benefits for qualified small-business stock, and major changes to charitable contribution and investment expense rules. 

The changes mark a major shift for family offices, which have spent years bracing for the 2025 sunset of Trump-era tax cuts. Now, with permanent higher exemptions and new investment incentives in place, wealthy families can focus on long-term planning — but they still face year-end pressure to lock in certain benefits before new restrictions take effect in 2026.

The changes stem from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed in July, which modified several provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The changes largely benefit wealthy investors and families, who started the year anxious due to the expiration of key tax advantages implemented during President Donald Trump’s first term and now are ending the year thankful for the certainty brought by the OBBA’s provisions.

That’s if they take advantage of these new provisions. The biggest mistake that family offices make is not using the strategies and exemptions available to them, said Asher Rubinstein, a tax, asset protection, and trusts and estates attorney at New York-based Gallet Dreyer & Berkey. 

Here are some of the key changes and…Read the entire article here.