Post-election tax planning for 2025 and beyond means reviewing estate exemptions, trust funding, entity structure, loss harvesting, and capital spending while the rules are favorable. For business owners, the larger question is where the freed-up cash goes next, and whether it earns more than it costs to deploy.
After the 2024 election, the estate exemption was scheduled to fall to a base projected near $7 million per person. It did not. Under the 2025 law it rose for 2026, so estate planning still matters for estates above $15 million per person ($30 million for a married couple), and the race against a sunset is over. What remains is an allocation question. For a business owner or high-income earner, a change in tax law is a capital event. It changes how many dollars stay inside the business and the household after the IRS is paid. Those dollars then sit, get spent, or get put to work.
A tax cut only builds wealth if the dollars it frees up are deployed into something that out-earns their cost. Left idle, they lose ground to inflation and to the opportunity cost of what they could have funded. Spent on consumption, they are simply gone.
The 2024 election put the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and its January 1, 2026 sunset in front of a unified Congress, which took it up in 2025 legislation. Figures marked historical below describe election night; the current exemption is on the IRS Estate Tax page. At BetterWealth, we have structured more than 2,000 policies across all 50 states. Below: the six moves that were on the table, where they stand now, and where a properly structured whole life policy fits, using the framework we call The And Asset.
- For 2026, the federal estate and gift exemption is $15 million per person ($30 million for a married couple) under the 2025 law.
- Historical: at the 2024 election, the TCJA was scheduled to sunset on January 1, 2026 unless Congress extended it.
- Historical: the exemption then stood at $13.61 million per person, against a scheduled reversion to a $5 million base, indexed for inflation (projected near $7 million).
- Trusts such as SLATs let families give now and move future appreciation out of an estate likely to grow past $15 million, with some retained flexibility.
- The And Asset rule governs any policy funded with tax savings: only borrow when the use beats the loan rate.
- Cash value does not catch cumulative premiums until around year five for a healthy insured, so this is long money.
01 / The ProblemWhy Is a Change in Tax Law a Capital Decision?
A change in tax law is a capital decision because it changes how many dollars you control after taxes, and every one of those dollars has to go somewhere. Most post-election commentary stops at the tax return. It tells you what the new rate is and how to capture it, then leaves the harder question alone.
For an entrepreneur, a real estate investor, or a high-income professional, the harder question is allocation. If the rules leave an extra $40,000 a year inside your business or household, that money can sit in a checking account, pay down a low-rate loan, go into a brokerage account, fund equipment, or build a capital base you can borrow against later. Each choice has a different return and a different level of control. The tax savings are the raw material. The outcome gets decided afterward.
Saving on taxes is half the job. A dollar of tax savings left idle loses ground to inflation and to what it could have funded.
02 / The LandscapeWhat Did the 2024 Election Put on the Table?
The 2024 election put the TCJA's January 1, 2026 sunset in front of a unified Congress, along with a set of business tax proposals that would change how owners structure and spend. Here is how the landscape looked at the time.
The TCJA Sunset
The TCJA was set to expire on January 1, 2026 unless extended. The provisions under discussion for extension included:
- Keeping the estate tax exemption at $13.61 million per person rather than reverting to a $5 million base, indexed for inflation (projected near $7 million).
- Keeping or lowering personal income tax rates and retaining the increased standard deduction.
- Proposed income tax exemptions for tips, Social Security income, and overtime pay. Tips and overtime passed as capped, temporary deductions rather than full exemptions; Social Security benefits were not exempted, though a separate temporary deduction for filers 65 and older passed. Confirm eligibility with your CPA.
- Removing the cap on State and Local Tax (SALT) deductibility. The cap was raised, not removed, and phases down at higher incomes. Confirm your limit with your CPA.
- Preserving the 20% Qualified Business Income deduction for pass-through entities.
Business Tax Proposals
Two business proposals drew the most attention. The first was a proposed 15% rate for domestic manufacturers, which would change the math on how a business is organized. The second was immediate expensing, which would let businesses deduct capital expenditures such as equipment and buildings in the year of purchase instead of over time.
Congress addressed the sunset in 2025 legislation. The estate exemption rose to $15 million per person for 2026. The 2025 law also restored 100% bonus depreciation (immediate expensing) for qualifying property acquired after January 19, 2025, and made the 20% QBI deduction permanent. Thresholds, phase-outs, and effective dates matter more than headlines, so confirm how bonus depreciation and QBI apply to you against the IRS QBI page and the IRS business provisions page, and with your CPA, before planning around either.
A proposal is not a law.
Where Things Stand Now
With the exemption at $15 million per person ($30 million for a married couple), the six moves below read differently in September 2026 than they did on election night. A SLAT is no longer a race against a deadline. It is a growth-transfer tool: assets given now move their future appreciation out of the estate, which matters most for families whose estates are likely to grow past the exemption. Selling discounted business interests to a grantor trust works the same way, shifting future growth rather than beating a sunset.
The deadline is gone. The growth still moves.
Loss harvesting is unchanged by the election and works in any year. Entity restructuring should be modeled against the corporate rate and QBI rules actually in force, not the 15% proposal. Capital spending should be timed against the bonus depreciation rules your CPA confirms for the year you buy. And the question of where tax savings go is the same as it was: the dollars have to be deployed into something that out-earns their cost.
03 / The MovesWhich Planning Moves Made Sense for Business Owners and Families?
Six planning moves stood out after the election, and each one depends on your estate, your entity, and your cash flow more than on the headlines. None of them is a do-it-yourself project. Each belongs in a conversation with your CPA, your estate attorney, or both.
1. Give Now So Future Growth Leaves the Estate
On election night, families raced to use the $13.61 million exemption before a possible reversion. That framing is historical. Today the reason to give is growth: assets transferred now take their future appreciation out of an estate likely to pass $15 million per person. The common tool is a trust, and a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT) is the one we see most. One spouse funds the trust for the benefit of the other, using the giver's exemption. The assets leave the taxable estate, and the family keeps indirect access through the beneficiary spouse, which preserves some flexibility.
The tradeoff is permanence. Assets given to the trust are no longer yours to take back, and the design depends on the marriage and on the beneficiary spouse. A SLAT solves an estate tax problem. It should not create a liquidity problem, so decide how much you can give away without needing it later.
A gift is a one-way door.
2. Move Business Interests Into Trusts
Selling discounted business interests to a grantor trust, which the IRS disregards for income tax purposes (often called an intentionally defective grantor trust), can move future growth out of the estate efficiently. Minority or non-controlling interests are often valued at a discount, so more of the business moves for less of the exemption. This strategy remained viable after the election, and the specific trust design is the estate attorney's work, not a template.
3. Harvest Capital Losses
Realized capital losses offset capital gains and up to $3,000 of ordinary income a year, with the rest carried forward. For an investor with a concentrated position or a volatile year, harvesting losses deliberately turns a paper setback into a tax asset that can be used later.
4. Revisit Your Business Tax Structure
Owners of pass-through entities (S-Corps, LLCs, partnerships) had reason to ask their accountants whether converting to a C-Corp would pay under a lower corporate rate. The honest answer is usually more complicated than the rate. C-Corp profits distributed as dividends are taxed a second time at the shareholder level, and a converted business can lose the 20% QBI deduction. A lower headline rate does not settle the question. A full model of what you actually take home does.
5. Time Capital Spending Around Expensing Rules
The 2025 law restored 100% bonus depreciation for qualifying property acquired after January 19, 2025. Confirm with your CPA that a given purchase qualifies. Where immediate expensing applies, buying equipment or property you already need can land the deduction sooner. Buying something you do not need to capture a deduction is a different decision. You spend a full dollar to save a fraction of one.
A deduction is never the reason to buy. The purchase has to earn its keep on its own numbers, and the tax treatment is a bonus on top.
6. Reallocate Tax Savings Into Permanent Life Insurance
With lower taxes, some families reallocate part of the savings into permanent life insurance, either by funding a new policy or by converting existing term coverage to whole life (including accelerating a term rider conversion). This is the move closest to our work, and it is the one most often sold badly. The next section covers when it makes sense and when it does not.
04 / The FrameworkWhere Does Life Insurance Fit After the Tax Work Is Done?
Life insurance fits as a capital base for tax savings you will not need for years, provided the policy is designed for cash value and you have a disciplined plan for using it. Without those two conditions, it is an expensive place to park money.
Nelson Nash pioneered the idea of using whole life insurance as a personal banking system. His core insight holds: you either lose money paying interest to outside lenders, or you lose money to the opportunity cost of capital sitting idle. We respect that foundation. The And Asset shares roots with IBC but operates on different principles.
Where IBC Ends and The And Asset Begins
IBC says you can use a whole life policy as a personal banking system for any purchase. The And Asset says you only deploy capital from the policy when the borrowed dollars will produce a return greater than the carrier's loan cost, because anything less is an expensive way to spend money. IBC tends to frame whole life as the destination. The And Asset frames the policy as the capital base, and the value is created in what you deploy that capital into.
That distinction matters after an election. Tax savings are exactly the kind of dollars that drift into consumption. A policy funded with them only earns its place if those dollars later do a second job.
The math has to work.
What About Converting Term to Whole Life?
Converting term coverage to whole life makes sense when you have a long time horizon, a plan for the cash value, and a converted policy designed for cash value rather than death benefit alone. The design decides the outcome. A conversion into a base-heavy policy builds cash value slowly, while a design that keeps the base premium low and directs more into the paid-up additions rider builds accessible cash value faster, within IRS limits. Ask how the converted policy will be structured before you sign anything.
05 / How It WorksHow to Put Tax Savings to Work in a Policy Built on The And Asset
Putting tax savings to work in a policy built on The And Asset takes five steps, and skipping the first two is how most people end up with the wrong policy. Here is the sequence we use.
- Measure the real savings. Work with your CPA to find what actually changed on your return under current law, in dollars. Plan around the law as written, not around a campaign proposal.
- Give the dollars a job. Separate reserves, estate planning dollars, and capital meant to be deployed. Only the capital portion belongs in a policy designed for borrowing.
- Structure for cash value. Keep the base premium low and direct as much as the IRS allows into the paid-up additions rider. A base/PUA split such as 30/70 is sized with the death benefit so the policy passes the 7-pay test and does not become a Modified Endowment Contract.
- Fund consistently and let it capitalize. Cash value trails cumulative premiums through the early years. Break-even typically arrives around year five or later for a healthy insured. Any illustration showing a year-one or year-two break-even is fiction.
- Borrow only when the use beats the loan rate. Take a policy loan only for an activity whose return exceeds the carrier's loan rate, then repay it from the cash flow that activity produces.
The policy grows at the dividend rate net of mortality and expense charges, not at the gross dividend rate an agent may quote. Dividends are declared annually and are not guaranteed beyond the contract's guaranteed values.
Tax Savings Fit a Policy Only for a Specific Person.
It Fits You If
- You have tax savings you will not need for 10+ years
- You already deploy capital in a business or real estate
- You can name a use for borrowed dollars that beats the loan rate
- Your reserves and estate plan are already handled
It Does Not Fit You If
- You may need the money in the next few years
- You are carrying high-interest debt
- You want a savings account, not a capital strategy
- You cannot identify a productive use for borrowed dollars
If you are in the first column, a 30-minute conversation will tell you whether a policy belongs next to the rest of your plan. If you are in the second, we will tell you that too.
Book a Discovery Call06 / The MathDoes the Deployed Capital Clear the Loan Rate?
The deployed capital has to clear the carrier's loan rate, or you should not borrow. That is the entire test. Policy loan rates vary by carrier and rate environment. At the time of writing many carriers fall in the 5 to 6% range, but treat any specific number as a variable to verify with the carrier, not a constant.
The structure of the decision is simple. You borrow at the carrier's loan rate. The policy keeps compounding on its full cash value, and how the carrier credits dividends on the borrowed portion depends on whether it uses direct or non-direct recognition. The deployed capital earns its own return. If that return is higher than the loan cost, the same dollar has done two jobs. If it is lower, you have borrowed money to lose money slowly.
If the deal does not clear the loan rate, do not borrow.
A Business Owner Who Put Tax Savings to Work
Consider a 46-year-old owner of a commercial HVAC company, preferred non-tobacco, who directs $40,000 a year of tax savings into a whole life policy issued by a non-direct recognition carrier. The design splits the premium $12,400 base and $27,600 paid-up additions, a 31/69 base/PUA split. This is an illustrative composite of patterns we see across 2,000+ policies, not a report of a single client, and every figure is for illustration only. Early cash value varies materially by carrier and design.
Through year three, cash value trails what went in: $110,900 against $120,000 contributed. That is how a real policy behaves. At year five, cash value reaches $201,300 against $200,000 contributed, and not before. By year seven, cash value sits near $294,800 against $280,000 contributed.
In year seven, the owner borrows $143,700 against the policy to add a service truck and equipment package for a maintenance contract the company already has lined up. The package adds about $2,910 a month, or $34,920 a year, in net margin. Over a seven-year useful life, that works out to roughly a 15.3% IRR. At an illustrative 6% loan rate, the loan repays on a 58-month schedule at about $2,860 a month, covered by the margin the equipment produces, for roughly $22,180 in total loan interest paid to the carrier.
Whether the purchase also qualifies for immediate expensing is a question for the CPA. The deal clears the loan rate without it. Meanwhile, with a non-direct recognition carrier, the policy keeps compounding on its full value, net of mortality and expense charges.
One dollar. Two jobs. That is the And.
07 / Common MistakesWhere Do People Get Post-Election Planning Wrong?
Most post-election planning mistakes come from acting on proposals as if they were law, or from letting a sales pitch ride the news cycle. We see four patterns repeatedly.
The first is urgency marketing. Every election produces agents and promoters telling people a window is about to slam shut. Some windows are real, and the estate exemption before a possible reversion was one of them. Most urgency is manufactured to shorten your thinking time, and a permanent policy bought in a hurry is usually a policy designed badly.
The second is the interest myth. Many IBC marketers say that when you borrow from your policy, you are paying yourself interest. You are not. The interest goes to the carrier. Your return is what the borrowed capital earns elsewhere while the policy keeps compounding, which is exactly why the use of the loan has to beat the loan rate.
The third is restructuring on a headline. Converting an entity because a corporate rate proposal sounded attractive, without modeling the second layer of tax and the lost QBI deduction, can cost more than it saves. The fourth is buying for the deduction: equipment the business did not need, bought only because expensing made it feel cheaper.
Marketers have ruined the way this should be explained. A policy loan is not you paying yourself. It is you paying the carrier, and it only makes sense when the deployed dollars beat that cost.
The Frameworks Behind 2,000+ Policies, in One Place.
The And Asset Vault holds the calculators, design frameworks, and structuring decisions we use when we decide whether a policy belongs in a client's plan at all. Free, email-gated, no spam.
Open the Vault08 / The TradeoffsBenefits and Real Tradeoffs of Funding a Policy With Tax Savings
A properly structured policy offers control and tax treatment that few other homes for tax savings match, and it carries tradeoffs that disqualify it for many people. Both belong on the table.
The Benefits
A policy loan requires no credit approval and cannot be called by a lender. You set the repayment schedule. Policy loans are generally not taxable income while the policy stays in force and is not a Modified Endowment Contract, under the life insurance and MEC rules in the tax code (IRC Sections 7702 and 7702A). With a non-direct recognition carrier, the policy continues to compound on its full cash value while you borrow against it, which is uninterrupted compounding. A direct recognition carrier adjusts the dividend on the borrowed portion.
The Tradeoffs
Early cash value runs below cumulative premiums through at least year four. That makes this long money, and anyone who might need the dollars in two or three years should keep them elsewhere. Loan interest is a real cost paid to the carrier. If a loan plus accrued interest grows past the cash value, the policy can lapse, and a lapse with a loan outstanding can turn the gain into taxable income. The strategy also demands discipline: a policy funded with tax savings and then borrowed against for consumption is worse than no policy at all.
The discipline of repayment is the whole strategy.
09 / Head to HeadWhere Should Post-Election Tax Savings Go?
Post-election tax savings can go to four common places, and each trades access, growth, and control differently. The table uses an illustrative $40,000 a year of savings.
| Dimension | The And Asset Policy | Taxable Brokerage | Paying Down a Low-Rate Loan | Business Cash Reserve |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year-1 Accessible Value (Illustrative $40,000) | Below $40,000; $27,200 in our composite | Market value, above or below $40,000 | $0 unless you re-borrow | $40,000 |
| Growth | Dividends net of mortality and expense charges; with a non-direct recognition carrier, keeps compounding on full value while borrowed against | Market growth; gains taxed when realized | Saves the loan's interest rate | Bank interest |
| Access | Policy loan, no credit approval, cannot be called | Sell positions, which can trigger capital gains | Re-borrow on the lender's terms | Immediate |
| Tax Treatment | Loans generally not taxable income while in force and not a MEC | Dividends and realized gains taxed | No tax effect on the paydown itself | Interest taxed |
| Best For | Long-horizon capital with a planned use that beats the loan rate | Long-term market exposure | Owners who want fewer fixed obligations | Operating needs in the next 12 months |
Year-1 accessible value. Among options that keep the money accessible, the policy is the one built to show less than you put in during the early years. That is its main cost. In our composite, $40,000 in becomes $27,200 of cash value in year one, loanable up to roughly 90% of cash value, varying by carrier, and break-even waits until year five.
Growth. A brokerage account can outgrow a policy over long stretches, and the policy is not a market alternative. The policy's edge is that, with a non-direct recognition carrier, it keeps compounding on its full value while you borrow against it, so the same dollar can back a loan and keep growing.
Access. A cash reserve is the fastest money you have, and every business needs one. A policy loan is slower than cash but cannot be frozen or called by a lender, which is the feature that matters when a deal appears and credit tightens.
Tax treatment. Brokerage gains and bank interest are taxed as they are realized or earned. Policy loans are generally not taxable income while the policy stays in force and is not a MEC, which is a structural difference rather than a promise of tax-free returns.
Best for. These are not competing choices. Most of the business owners we work with use a cash reserve, market accounts, and a policy side by side, each for the job it does best.
10 / The Bigger PictureHow Does This Fit Into a Broader Capital Strategy?
Post-election tax planning fits into a broader capital strategy as the first step, not the whole strategy. The sequence matters: settle the estate plan with your attorney, settle the entity and spending decisions with your CPA, keep your reserves intact, then decide where the remaining capital does the most work.
A policy sits alongside retirement accounts and market investments. It does not replace a 401(k), and it is not a place for money you may need soon. For the entrepreneur or investor who already deploys capital, it becomes the base that funds the next opportunity without selling something else to reach it. The discipline behind the capital does not have to change.
An Honest 30 Minutes on Whether This Fits You.
We have structured 2,000+ policies. We have seen this strategy work exactly as designed, and we have seen it fail. If you want a real conversation about whether The And Asset fits your situation after the tax work is done, book a call. We will give you the honest answer either way. No pressure, no pitch. If you would rather learn first, The And Asset YouTube channel and the BetterWealth YouTube channel go deep on the math.
Book a Discovery CallFAQPost-Election Tax Planning Questions
What did the 2024 election mean for tax planning in 2025 and beyond?
The 2024 election put a unified Congress and a new administration in position to act on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act before its scheduled January 1, 2026 sunset. For business owners and families, that made estate exemptions, entity structure, capital spending, and the use of any tax savings the planning questions to answer.
Did the TCJA expire on January 1, 2026?
Congress addressed the scheduled sunset in 2025 legislation, so the TCJA did not simply lapse as originally written. The details differ by provision, so confirm the current estate exemption, rates, and deductions with your CPA before planning around any of them.
What was the estate tax exemption at the time of the election?
At the time of the 2024 election, the federal estate tax exemption was $13.61 million per person. Had the TCJA sunset taken effect as written, it would have reverted to a $5 million base, indexed for inflation (projected near $7 million).
What is a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT)?
A SLAT is a trust one spouse funds for the benefit of the other, using the giver's estate tax exemption. It moves assets out of the taxable estate while keeping indirect access through the beneficiary spouse. The gift is permanent, so it should be designed with an estate attorney.
Should I convert my pass-through business to a C-Corp?
Only if the numbers work after every layer of tax, and only after a CPA models it. A lower corporate rate on its own does not settle the question, because C-Corp profits paid out as dividends are taxed again and a pass-through may lose the 20% Qualified Business Income deduction by converting.
Should I convert my term life insurance to whole life?
Converting makes sense when you have a long time horizon, a plan for the cash value, and a converted policy designed for cash value rather than death benefit alone. A conversion into a base-heavy design builds cash value slowly, so ask how the new policy will be structured before you sign.
Can tax savings be put into a whole life policy?
Yes, tax savings can fund a properly structured whole life policy. It works when the dollars are long-term capital, the policy is built for cash value, and you have a use for policy loans that beats the carrier's loan rate.
Is a policy loan taxable?
A policy loan is generally not taxable income while the policy stays in force and is not a Modified Endowment Contract, under the life insurance and MEC rules in the tax code (IRC Sections 7702 and 7702A). If the policy lapses with a loan outstanding, the gain can become taxable, which is why loan size and repayment discipline matter.
What is The And Asset?
The And Asset is BetterWealth's framework for using a properly structured whole life policy as a capital base. You only borrow against it for an activity that produces a return greater than the carrier's loan cost, so your dollars do two jobs at once: the policy keeps compounding, net of mortality and expense charges, while the deployed capital earns its own return. With a direct recognition carrier, the dividend on the borrowed portion changes while the loan is outstanding; with a non-direct recognition carrier, it does not.
How is The And Asset different from infinite banking?
Infinite banking, as Nelson Nash taught it, frames a whole life policy as a personal banking system for any purchase. The And Asset shares those roots but operates on different principles: you only deploy borrowed capital when the return clears the carrier's loan cost, and the policy is the capital base, not the destination.
Do I pay myself interest on a policy loan?
No. Many IBC marketers say you are paying yourself interest, but the interest on a policy loan goes to the insurance carrier. Your return comes from what the borrowed capital earns elsewhere while the policy keeps compounding.
How long before cash value exceeds what I paid in?
For a healthy insured on a well-designed policy, cash value typically catches cumulative premiums around year five or later, and does not exceed them before year four. Money that may be needed sooner belongs somewhere else.
- IRS: Estate Tax, for the current federal estate tax exemption and filing rules.
- IRS: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a Comparison for Businesses, for the business provisions discussed above.
- IRS: Qualified Business Income Deduction, for the 20% pass-through deduction.
- IRC Section 7702 (Cornell Law), the tax code provision that defines life insurance for tax purposes.
- Nelson Nash, Becoming Your Own Banker, the origin of the infinite banking concept.
- BetterWealth resources: The And Asset book, The And Asset YouTube channel, and the BetterWealth YouTube channel.
I founded BetterWealth to treat life insurance as the wealth and capital tool it actually is, not the product most people get sold. Our team has structured more than 2,000 policies across all 50 states. I wrote The And Asset and host the BetterWealth and The And Asset YouTube channels. If you want an honest read on whether a policy belongs in your plan once the tax work is done, book a discovery call. We will tell you if it does not.