Far too often over the last decade, business owners and their advisors have been living in a sort of tax limbo. Important deductions and credits have been tied to sunset dates, extensions, or last-minute deals in Congress, making it challenging to build a sound multi-year exit plan.
Living in that limbo has been especially challenging in the exit planning process, where owners who work alongside Certified Exit Planning Advisors (CEPA®) often need a runway before an exit to align their personal, financial, and business needs. When key rules are in danger of changing just as a deal is closing, it becomes more difficult to know when to finalize the sale or how to structure it for tax purposes.
2026 will be the first tax season for business owners under the new tax rules imposed, or extended, by the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB) signed into law in July 2025.
For the last several years, you and your business owner clients may have struggled as many high-impact tax breaks and deductions have been teetering on the edge of being temporary or not. As you and your business owner clients prepare taxes for the 2025 tax year, the BBB has the potential to help stabilize the tax landscape in 2026 and beyond.
The BBB expands often-used provisions and can create a framework for owners and advisors. The bill does this by locking in popular tax breaks, enhancing write-offs for equipment and infrastructure improvements, boosting tax incentives for selling a business, and more.
For a deeper look at the BBB and its implications for your business owner clients, or even you, as a business owner, stay tuned to the exit planning blog.
This new tax landscape also brings new advantages for CEPAs in their work with business owners. Not only does this allow CEPAs to work with their clients to reduce their tax burden on the exit deal, but it also provides them with a stable roadmap due to the more predictable tax code.
As you work with your business owner clients in the lead-up to filing their taxes this year, be sure to use your time with them wisely. Tax season is an ideal time to address questions regarding your clients’ exit plan, as it’s a time when they will have all their financial information in one place, regardless of how close they are to their exit. This makes tax time a natural place for CEPAs to shift the conversation from their clients’ 2025 return to the next several years of planning.
With regards to the BBB, consider asking if your clients’ business structure still makes sense for their goals regarding their exit down the road, or how they can utilize these new deductions to help support their personal, financial, and business goals.
“Resolving the wealth gap is front and center for all CEPAs. Collaborating to reduce the tax burden through timing, combining, and sequencing of unique advanced strategies is a key driver," says Joe Strazzeri, Esq., 2023 Peter Christman Exit Planner of the Year.
Looking to expand your tax knowledge before you and your clients start this year? Consider our EPI Academy course, “Tax Planning for Business Transitions” led by Brad Barros, Jess Bahs, and Gal Kaufman. In this course, you’ll gain a better understanding of what your clients should keep in mind from a tax perspective as they prepare to sell their company.
Another opportunity for hands-on learning comes at the 2026 Exit Planning Summit, where Joe will lead the Advanced Tax Planning Workshop designed to help attendees understand how to help business owners with their integrated personal and business legal, financial, and tax planning, as the effects of the BBB come to fruition.
Seats for this workshop are limited, so sign up now to lock in your spot before it fills up completely. To learn more about this workshop and the others EPI will host at the Exit Planning Summit, visit ExitPlanningSummit.com.
A Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA®) is a professional credential for advisors who wish to engage with business owner clients through the exit planning process using the Value Acceleration Methodology™. Through the CEPA credential, advisors can provide new offerings for clients and stand out from their non-CEPA peers, all while gaining access to education, resources, and a vast network of like-minded professionals.