Three million Americans enrolled in Affordable Care Act health insurance last year and have since dropped their coverage in 2026. The reason is the same for most of them: their monthly premiums exploded. The temporary premium tax credits that made ACA coverage affordable for millions of Americans expired at the end of 2025, and Congress — despite months of debate — has not acted to extend them. The result is that people who were paying $50 or $100 a month for health coverage last year are now being asked to pay three, four, or five times that amount. Many simply can't or won't, and they're walking away uninsured.
This matters enormously for families making financial decisions right now — not just for people on ACA plans, but for anyone approaching retirement, anyone self-employed, or anyone who helps a family member with health insurance costs. Here's what's changed and what to watch.
Before 2021, the premium tax credit was only available to individuals whose household income fell between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level. From 2021 through 2025, those limits were expanded — people with higher incomes qualified, and the credits were more generous across the board. When Congress failed to extend those enhancements, the rules snapped back to their pre-2021 state on January 1, 2026. The impact was immediate. Millions of people who had been receiving advance premium tax credits — paid directly to the insurance company to lower monthly bills — suddenly found those credits dramatically reduced or gone entirely.
There's also a new repayment trap starting with 2026 tax returns filed next year. In prior years, if your advance premium tax credits turned out to be larger than the credit you were actually entitled to, there was a cap on how much you'd have to repay at tax time — especially for people with lower incomes. That protection is gone. Starting in 2026, every dollar of excess advance credit must be fully repaid at tax time, no exceptions, no income-based cap. If your income was estimated incorrectly when you enrolled, the reconciliation on your 2026 return could be painful. If you or anyone in your family is on an ACA marketplace plan, verify that your income estimate on file is accurate now — before December.
Congress may yet act, and the health insurance situation is widely expected to become a central issue in this November's midterm elections. But planning around what might happen is not a strategy. Planning around what the law actually says right now is.
If you or a loved one is paying for long-term care insurance, a significant new tax opportunity just opened up — and most people have no idea it exists. Starting in 2026, employees can now withdraw up to $2,600 per year from their 401(k) plans specifically to pay long-term care insurance premiums, without owing the normal 10% early withdrawal penalty. The money is still subject to regular income tax, but the penalty waiver is meaningful for anyone under 59½ who is trying to fund LTC coverage.
Additionally, premiums paid for a qualifying long-term care policy are deductible as medical expenses, subject to age-based limits. For 2026, individuals age 71 and older can deduct up to $6,200 per person. Ages 61 to 70 can deduct up to $4,960. Ages 51 to 60, up to $1,860. Self-employed individuals have an even better deal — they can deduct their long-term care premiums directly from income on Schedule 1, without needing to itemize, making the deduction available regardless of whether their total medical expenses cross the 7.5% AGI threshold.
Long-term care is one of the most underplanned areas in retirement. Healthcare costs are typically a family's largest unplanned retirement expense, and these deductions represent real dollars that many people are walking past every year. Worth a conversation.
For families caring for a disabled loved one, ABLE accounts are one of the most valuable and underutilized tools in the tax code. These state-administered accounts allow individuals with disabilities to save up to $20,000 per year in 2026, with earnings and withdrawals tax-free when used for qualified disability expenses — housing, transportation, education, health needs, technology, legal fees, and more. A recent expansion now allows ABLE accounts to be opened for individuals who became disabled before age 46 (previously the cutoff was age 26), dramatically expanding who qualifies. Tax-free rollovers from a 529 plan are also permitted. If disability affects anyone in your family, ABLE accounts deserve a serious look.
A critical reminder about scams targeting retirees and seniors. The IRS recently flagged six specific types of fraud hitting older Americans hardest right now: government impersonation (fake IRS or Social Security calls), emergency scams ("your grandchild needs money now"), romance scams, lottery fraud, investment fraud including fake cryptocurrency opportunities, and charity scams following disasters. From 2020 to 2024, the number of older Americans who lost $100,000 or more to internet scams increased nearly sevenfold.
One nuance worth knowing: not all scam losses are tax-deductible. Victims of romance or kidnapping scams generally cannot deduct their losses because they're considered personal losses. However, victims of fraud involving their investment accounts — where a scammer convinced them their account was compromised or offered a fraudulent investment — may be able to claim a theft loss. And Ponzi scheme victims may have investment loss treatment available. If someone you know has been a victim of financial fraud, a qualified tax professional should review whether any of the loss is recoverable through the tax system.
A brief but important Supreme Court ruling this summer affects homeowners with property tax obligations. The Court ruled that when a local government forecloses on a home due to unpaid property taxes and sells it at auction, the homeowner is entitled to the auction proceeds — not the home's fair market value. In the case before the Court, a homeowner owed $2,242 in unpaid property taxes on a home worth approximately $194,000. The county sold the property at auction for $76,009. The homeowner received $73,767. The Court declined to award the full market value. The message is clear: unpaid property taxes can result in enormous financial losses with very limited legal recourse. If you or a family member is behind on property taxes, this should be treated as an emergency.
And in the category of news that might surprise you — the IRS is using AI chatbots to respond to taxpayer inquiries, and nobody is checking whether they're giving correct answers. Treasury inspectors recently reviewed these chat applications and found troubling discrepancies that the IRS couldn't explain. The IRS itself admitted it has no system for measuring whether its chatbots are accurate or effective. This matters because thousands of taxpayers are making decisions — about payment plans, notices, refunds — based on guidance from these automated tools that may or may not be correct.
The takeaway: treat any information you receive from an IRS chatbot or automated phone system with healthy skepticism. Verify important tax information with a qualified tax professional, and don't make payments or take action based solely on an automated response.
Tax planning isn't just about filing a return once a year. It's about understanding how the rules are changing around you — on health insurance, long-term care, retirement accounts, estate planning, and more — and positioning yourself to make the best decisions before the window closes.
That's the work we do every day for the families and business owners we serve across Wisconsin.
If something in this post raised a question about your situation, we'd love to talk. First conversations are always complimentary — and often the most valuable ones.
Disclaimer: This is educational content with a healthy dose of sarcasm, not personal financial or tax advice. For your specific situation, consult a qualified tax professional who can navigate all this chaos with you.