Μake us preferred on Google Americans are sizing up their finances after Democrats’ blowout victories in the midterm elections Tuesday.
The results point to a new financial and tax-policy agenda that could take flight if the Democrats win the presidency in 2028, as President Trump is expected to block major changes while he is still in the White House .
For individuals, that would mean two years to maximize tax breaks and prepare portfolios for policy shifts ahead. Here are three areas of particular focus.
Estate taxes
The morning after the midterms, Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the incoming Senate Finance Committee chairman, renewed his calls to target the ultrarich. “On taxes, the committee will redouble its efforts to ensure billionaires pay their fair share and hold tax cheats accountable,” he said Wednesday.
While Democrats will have difficulty raising taxes with Trump in office, they might attempt to undo some of the tax cuts that he signed into law last year, especially those that benefit higher-income households. That could mean higher top tax rates on ordinary income and capital gains, or even a lower gift and estate-tax exemption amount, if the Democrats sweep the 2028 elections.
Wyden has also proposed taxing unrealized gains or capital gains at death.
For now, advisers say the rich are taking advantage of the generous gift and estate-tax limit, and the additional $19,000 annual exclusion for gifts per recipient. Because the combined lifetime gift and estate-tax exemption amount is indexed for inflation under the new tax law, it is estimated to rise from $15 million for a person to about $15.5 million for 2027.
The biggest threat to estate plans is inaction, said Mark Parthemer , chief wealth strategist at Glenmede. “We’re not hitting the panic button,” he said. But if it makes sense for clients to make gifts to family members to get assets out of their estates and move future appreciation off their balance sheets, “sooner is probably better than later.”
Attendees during a campaign rally in Sterling Heights, Mich., last week. Emily Rose Bennett for WSJ
Tax strategies
Some popular tax-avoidance strategies have caught the attention of Senate Democrats who want to rein them in. Even under Trump, the tide has started to shift on some strategies the government sees as more aggressive. The Treasury Department said in September that it would block one maneuver , known as a 351 conversion, that has been used to avoid capital-gains taxes, and it flagged others.
But Democrats, most notably Wyden, have said that those moves don’t go far enough. Wyden has said that the government should crack down on the long-short tax-aware investment strategy . Nearly $200 billion has flowed into the strategy, which allows investors to track an index while also generating losses that can be used to offset capital-gains taxes.
Wyden also introduced a bill in April targeting private-placement life insurance , a customizable insurance contract that allows unlimited investments to grow tax-free, that has become increasingly popular among ultrawealthy investors.
Wyden and Rep. Richard Neal (D., Mass.), who is likely to be chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, want to put limits on the size of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, barring high earners from contributing once balances exceed $10 million.
Also potentially in the crosshairs: grantor-retained annuity trusts , or GRATs, which the wealthy use to transfer fortunes to their children without paying gift and estate taxes.
Wealth advisers say they don’t expect much to change as long as Trump is in office, but all bets are off if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028. Meanwhile, they are counseling clients to use the strategies while they can.
“The next two years are going to provide a pretty stable window for high-net-worth families to implement whatever strategies they might want to,” said AJ Kletkin , a wealth adviser at Private Advisor Group. “If there are any changes that happen, you’re hopefully grandfathered in.”
Social Security
Social Security faces a looming funding shortfall regardless of who controls Washington.
The trust fund that pays retirement and survivor benefits is projected to exhaust its reserves in late 2032, according to the program’s trustees. At that point, continuing program income would cover about 78% of scheduled benefits unless Congress acts. It will be up to the newly elected senators to help solve the problem .
Social Security is funded mainly by a 12.4% payroll tax, split evenly between workers and employers. It applies only to the first $184,500 of wages and self-employment income this year. At least two Democrats who won Senate seats Tuesday, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Troy Jackson in Maine, campaigned on removing that cap.
Many older voters assume Congress will spare them from benefit reductions. But Russell Boston , a 71-year-old trial lawyer in Macon, Ga., said he would accept a reduction for affluent retirees like himself as part of a deal to put the program on sound footing.
“One way or the other, they’ll fix the problem,” he said.
Some of the most consequential provisions in Congress’s last major Social Security overhaul, enacted in 1983, were phased in over decades. Social Security’s trustees have warned that waiting leaves lawmakers less time to spread the necessary tax increases or benefit changes across generations.
Younger families are already planning for the uncertainty.
Caleb Sheng, 44, an estate-planning lawyer in the Detroit area, is planning so his toddler daughter won’t have to rely on Social Security. Along with a 529 college-savings plan, he and his wife opened a Trump account and plan to convert it to a Roth IRA when she is 24, paying tax on it themselves. They also plan to leave her a Roth.
Sheng wants today’s retirees to keep getting every penny. To pay for that, and keep the program solvent for his daughter’s generation, he said he would be willing to forgo his own benefits.
“My generation should be that sacrificial bridge generation,” he said.
Write to Dalvin Brown at dalvin.brown@wsj.com , Ashlea Ebeling at ashlea.ebeling@wsj.com and Miriam Gottfried at Miriam.Gottfried@wsj.com
