Tax Cuts for Now. But What Happens in 2026?

Note: The editors of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine and the Kiplinger Tax Letter are answering questions about the new tax law from subscribers to our free Kiplinger Today daily email. See other reader Q&As about the new tax law, or submit your own question.

Question: Most of the individual provisions of the proposed tax law expire as of Jan. 1, 2026. What will happen in eight years?

Answer: Unless those provisions are extended, the law will revert to what existed before the new provisions were enacted. Don’t count on it, though.

Whether or not to extend the life of the new rules will be the subject of hot political debate, just as occurred for years after passage of the George W. Bush “temporary” tax cuts of 2001. Most of those cuts were ultimately made permanent.