5 Financial Decisions to Consider Before Year-End

1. Make intended retirement plan contributions. For employer-sponsored accounts, like a 401(k) account, be sure to make your contributions before December 31, especially if your employer offers a match. The match offered by your employer is an investment return. For IRAs and Roth IRAs, you have until Tax Day, April 15, 2025, to contribute.
2. Consider tax-loss harvesting. Within your taxable investment account, you can sell an investment that is at a capital loss and reinvest the proceeds into an investment that is similar to the one you sold. This allows you to use that realized capital loss to offset capital gains in other portions of your portfolio.
3. Make your required minimum distributions (RMDs). If you have an IRA and are required to take distributions this year, make sure to do so before the end of year, otherwise you’ll face tax penalties that can eat into your account’s returns.
4. Complete charitable giving. A great tool for charitable giving is a donor-advised fund, which you can make a large contribution to now but decide on the recipient later. This still allows you to reflect the contribution on your tax return for 2024.
5. Perform a Roth conversion. Converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA might make sense for some individuals who expect to have low taxable income this year. By converting a traditional IRA to a Roth, you pay taxes on the amount you convert, but once it is in in the Roth, it will grow tax-free.

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