[FN-02] Key Numbers 2026
The Annual Reference Page — Single Source of Truth for Figures
Section titled “The Annual Reference Page — Single Source of Truth for Figures”Pillar: Foundations · Last verified: August 2026 · Refresh cadence: Every November–January (most figures announced Oct–Nov of the prior year) Type: Reference Convention: Other wiki articles cite this page instead of hard-coding numbers wherever practical.
Verification legend: ✅ = confirmed against primary/authoritative source during the Aug 2026 audit · ◻️ = high confidence, confirm against the primary source before acting on it
Not advice. Educational reference. Figures on this page are year-stamped and go stale on a predictable schedule — most are superseded between October and January. Anything ◻️ is unconfirmed. Before acting on a number here, check it against the primary source cited in its section (Rev. Proc., SSA, CMS, or HHS release).
1. Federal Income Tax (Tax Year 2026 — Rev. Proc. 2025-32)
Section titled “1. Federal Income Tax (Tax Year 2026 — Rev. Proc. 2025-32)”The seven rates (10/12/22/24/32/35/37%) are now permanent under OBBBA; thresholds index annually. ✅
Brackets (taxable income) — Rev. Proc. 2025-32 §3.01, read directly: ✅
| Rate | Single | Married Filing Jointly | Head of Household |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $0 – $12,400 | $0 – $24,800 | $0 – $17,700 |
| 12% | – $50,400 | – $100,800 | – $67,450 |
| 22% | – $105,700 | – $211,400 | – $105,700 |
| 24% | – $201,775 | – $403,550 | – $201,750 |
| 32% | – $256,225 | – $512,450 | – $256,200 |
| 35% | – $640,600 | – $768,700 | – $640,600 |
| 37% | above | above | above |
The single 22% band tops out at $105,700 against $211,400 joint — exactly half. That asymmetry is the widow(er)’s trap (TX-02 §3).
Standard deduction: ✅
| Filing status | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Single / MFS | $16,100 |
| Head of Household | $24,150 |
| Married Filing Jointly | $32,200 |
| Additional, age 65+ (or blind) | +$2,050 unmarried · +$1,650 per married spouse |
| OBBBA senior “bonus” deduction (2025–2028 only) | +$6,000 per person 65+ ($12,000/couple); phases out above $75k single / $150k MFJ MAGI ✅ |
Planning note: a 65+ MFJ couple can reach a combined deduction of $32,200 + $3,300 + $12,000 = $47,500 — a large zero-bracket that changes Roth-conversion and gain-harvesting math through 2028. → TX-02, TX-06
2. Capital Gains & Investment Income (2026)
Section titled “2. Capital Gains & Investment Income (2026)”Rate thresholds by taxable income (Rev. Proc. 2025-32 §3.03 — all five filing statuses verified against the primary source, Aug 2026): ✅
| Filing status | 0% up to | 15% up to | 20% above |
|---|---|---|---|
| Married filing jointly / surviving spouse | $98,900 | $613,700 | — |
| Head of household | $66,200 | $579,600 | — |
| Single | $49,450 | $545,500 | — |
| Married filing separately | $49,450 | $306,850 | — |
| Estates and trusts | $3,300 | $16,250 | — |
| Item | Threshold |
|---|---|
| NIIT (3.8%) MAGI trigger — not indexed | $200,000 single · $250,000 MFJ ✅ |
The 0% bracket stacks on top of deductions: an MFJ couple with no other income can realize ~$131,100 of gains ($32,200 + $98,900) at 0% federal. Every dollar of other income displaces a dollar of that capacity. → TX-01
3. Retirement Account Limits (2026)
Section titled “3. Retirement Account Limits (2026)”| Account | Base limit | Catch-up |
|---|---|---|
| 401(k)/403(b)/457(b) elective deferral | $24,500 ✅ | +$8,000 (50+) ✅ · +$11,250 (ages 60–63) ✅ |
| Total DC plan limit (§415) | $72,000 ✅ | — |
| Traditional/Roth IRA | $7,500 ✅ | +$1,100 (50+) ✅ |
| SIMPLE IRA | $17,000 ✅ | +$4,000 (50+) ✅ |
| HSA (Rev. Proc. 2025-19) | $4,400 self / $8,750 family ✅ | +$1,000 each (55+) ✅ — each catch-up needs its own HSA → HC-04 |
| HSA — HDHP minimum deductible / OOP max | $1,700 / $8,500 self · $3,400 / $17,000 family ✅ | — |
| Roth IRA income phase-out | $153,000–$168,000 single/HoH · $242,000–$252,000 MFJ ✅ |
Reminder: high earners aged 50+ must make catch-ups as Roth (SECURE 2.0, effective 2026). The trigger is more than $150,000 of 2025 FICA wages from the employer sponsoring the plan ✅ — Notice 2025-67, §414(v)(7)(A). Two traps in that sentence: it is prior-year wages, so the 2026 test is already settled, and $145,000 is the superseded figure — that was the 2024 threshold governing 2025 catch-ups, and this page carried it for the 2026 plan year. Self-employment income is not wages, so a sole proprietor with no W-2 is outside the rule entirely.
4. RMDs, QCDs & Related (2026)
Section titled “4. RMDs, QCDs & Related (2026)”| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| RMD start age | 73 (born 1951–1959) · 75 (born 1960+) ✅ |
| QCD annual limit (per person, 70½+) | $111,000 ✅ |
| Inherited IRA (most non-spouse heirs) | 10-year rule; annual RMDs required in years 1–9 if decedent had begun RMDs ✅ |
| SEPP / 72(t) max interest rate | Greater of 5.00% or 120% of the federal mid-term AFR (either of the 2 months before the first distribution) — Notice 2022-6 ✅ · 120% of mid-term was 4.57% in Jan 2026, so the 5% floor governs in this environment ◻️ → ER-03 |
5. Social Security (2026)
Section titled “5. Social Security (2026)”| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| COLA | 2.8% ✅ |
| Taxable wage base | $184,500 ✅ |
| Earnings test — under FRA all year | $24,480 ($1 withheld per $2 over) ✅ |
| Earnings test — year reaching FRA | $65,160 ($1 per $3 over, until FRA month) ✅ |
| Max benefit at FRA | $4,152/mo ✅ |
| Max benefit claiming at 70 | $5,181/mo ✅ |
| Max benefit claiming at 62 | $2,969/mo ✅ |
| One work credit | $1,890 in earnings (4/yr max) ✅ |
| PIA bend points (fixed for life to the cohort turning 62 in 2026) | 90% of first $1,286 · 32% to $7,749 · 15% above ✅ → SS-01 |
| Max family benefit bend points | $1,643 / $2,371 / $3,093 ✅ |
| Average benefit, retired worker (Jan 2026) | $2,071/mo ✅ |
| Average benefit, aged couple both receiving | $3,208/mo ✅ |
| Average benefit, aged widow(er) alone | $1,919/mo ✅ |
Claiming-age adjustment (statutory, not annual): reduced 5/9 of 1%/month for the first 36 months before FRA, 5/12 of 1%/month beyond; increased 2/3 of 1%/month (8%/yr) after FRA, ceasing at 70. At FRA 67 that is 70% of PIA at 62 and 124% at 70. ✅ → SS-01
Trust-fund status (2026 Trustees Report): OASI reserves projected depleted Q4 2032, with 78% of scheduled benefits payable from ongoing revenue; combined OASDI 2034 at 83% (combining the funds requires legislation). ✅ → FN-03
6. Medicare (2026)
Section titled “6. Medicare (2026)”| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Part B standard premium | $202.90/mo ✅ |
| Part B deductible | $283/yr ✅ |
| Part A inpatient deductible (per benefit period) | $1,736 ✅ · coinsurance $434/day (days 61–90) · $868/day (lifetime reserve) · SNF $217/day (days 21–100) ✅ |
| Part D avg standalone premium / max deductible | $34.50 / $615 ✅ |
| Part D out-of-pocket cap | $2,100 ✅ |
IRMAA (based on 2024 MAGI — the two-year lookback): ✅ thresholds and premiums (Aug 2026 audit — Part B tiers are 35/50/65/80/85% of program cost vs. the 25% standard share; Part D amounts derive from the $38.99 national base beneficiary premium)
Surcharges are per person — a married couple pays double every annual figure below.
| 2024 MAGI single | 2024 MAGI MFJ | Part B total/mo | Part B surcharge/mo | Part D surcharge/mo | Combined/yr per person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ≤ $109,000 | ≤ $218,000 | $202.90 | — | — | $0 |
| – $137,000 | – $274,000 | $284.10 | $81.20 | $14.50 | $1,148.40 |
| – $171,000 | – $342,000 | $405.80 | $202.90 | $37.50 | $2,884.80 |
| – $205,000 | – $410,000 | $527.50 | $324.60 | $60.40 | $4,620.00 |
| – <$500,000 | – <$750,000 | $649.20 | $446.30 | $83.30 | $6,355.20 |
| ≥ $500,000 | ≥ $750,000 | $689.90 | $487.00 | $91.00 | $6,936.00 |
The top tier ($500k/$750k) is frozen — no inflation indexing until 2028 (Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018); the lower four index annually to CPI-U. Note the top MFJ threshold is 1.5× the single line, not 2×. ✅
→ Bracket management and SSA-44 appeals: HC-06
7. ACA Marketplace (2026 plan year)
Section titled “7. ACA Marketplace (2026 plan year)”| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Governing poverty guidelines | 2025 HHS FPL ✅ |
| 100% FPL (48 states) | $15,650 +$5,500/person ✅ |
| 138% FPL — Medicaid floor (expansion states) | $21,597 (1) · $29,187 (2) · $44,367 (4) — below this, Medicaid not APTC ✅ → HC-03 |
| 200% FPL — Basic Health Program floor (MN, OR, NY, DC) | $31,300 (1) · $42,300 (2) · $64,300 (4) — in BHP jurisdictions the effective APTC floor, since BHP eligibility blocks the credit ✅ → HC-03 |
| 400% FPL cliff | $62,600 (1) · $84,600 (2) · $128,600 (4) ✅ |
| CSR lines (Silver only) | 150% FPL → 94% AV · 200% → 87% · 250% → 73% ✅ |
| Applicable percentages | 2.10% → 9.96% (Rev. Proc. 2025-25) — full table in HC-01 ✅ |
| APTC repayment caps | Eliminated (OBBBA), 2026 forward ✅ |
| Bronze/Catastrophic plans HSA-eligible | Yes, new for 2026 ✅ |
| Direct primary care fee cap (HSA-compatible) | $150/mo self · $300/mo family, indexed ✅ — a qualifying DPC arrangement is no longer a disqualifying health plan for HSA purposes, and the fee is itself a qualified expense, for months beginning after 31 December 2025 (OBBBA; IRS Notice 2026-05). Excludes procedures requiring general anaesthesia, prescription drugs other than vaccines, and most laboratory services ✅ → HC-05, HC-04 |
8. Estate & Gift (2026)
Section titled “8. Estate & Gift (2026)”| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Federal estate/gift exemption | $15,000,000 per person (OBBBA; indexed after 2026) ✅ |
| Top transfer tax rate (estate, gift, GST) | 40% ✅ |
| Annual gift exclusion | $19,000 per recipient ✅ |
| GST exemption | $15,000,000 per person — separate from, but equal to, the estate/gift exemption ✅ · not portable between spouses ✅ |
| Annual gift exclusion — non-citizen spouse | $194,000 (2026) · $190,000 (2025) ✅ — the unlimited marital deduction does not apply; a QDOT is required at death → EP-05 §7 |
| Nonresident non-citizen estate exemption | ~$60,000 of U.S.-situs assets ◻️ |
| Portability | Yes — an executor must file Form 706 at the first death and elect it, even when no tax is due ✅ |
| Portability deadlines | 9 months · 15 with the automatic extension · up to 5 years under the simplified late election of Rev. Proc. 2022-32 ✅ → EP-05 §3 |
Example state layer: Washington (State notes convention — full 50-state tables in ST-04)
Section titled “Example state layer: Washington (State notes convention — full 50-state tables in ST-04)”| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| State income tax | None — no tax on wages, SS, pensions, IRA withdrawals, or Roth conversions ✅ |
| Capital gains excise tax | 7% on LTCG above the standard deduction — $278,000 for tax year 2025 ✅ (indexed; DOR has not published the 2026 amount ◻️) — plus an additional 2.9% above $1M, a 9.9% top rate ✅. Real estate and retirement-account assets exempt ✅ |
| Estate tax | Exclusion $3,000,000, frozen, for deaths on or after July 1, 2026 — SB 6347 (signed Mar 2026) restored the 10%–20% rate schedule from that date, reversing the 35% top rate that applied July 2025–June 2026, and re-tied indexing to a discontinued CPI series, so the exclusion no longer rises ✅; no portability between spouses (credit-shelter planning matters) ✅. The exclusion is keyed to date of death, so an earlier one is still live for open estates: $3,076,000 (historical) governs deaths from Jan 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, and a WA estate return is due nine months after death ✅ |
| WA Cares (LTC) | 0.58% payroll tax; $36,500 lifetime benefit (indexed) ◻️ |
| Community property | Yes — full double step-up in basis at first spouse’s death ✅ |
| Medicaid expansion / exchange | Expanded (Apple Health, 138% FPL floor); Washington Healthplanfinder; Cascade Care Savings state subsidies ✅ |
The WA takeaway: income-tax paradise for Roth conversions and IRA drawdowns, but an estate-tax trap above $3M/person — the state layer inverts parts of the federal playbook. The 2026 rate rollback cut the top rate but froze the exclusion, so the trap widens every year by inflation alone.
Canonical figures & retired values (machine-checked)
Section titled “Canonical figures & retired values (machine-checked)”This table is read by .github/scripts/check_wiki.py. It exists because this wiki’s demonstrated failure mode is not a wrong number — it is a right number that goes stale in some articles and not others. The Washington estate exclusion was wrong in this page, accidentally right in two others, and survived a first correction pass in two more. Eight State-notes callouts deliberately duplicate state figures, so every load-bearing number lives in several places at once.
How it works. A figure listed in Retired is one this wiki used to carry and no longer accepts. Any article containing a retired value is an error, so the annual refresh cannot silently half-finish.
Two escapes, for legitimate history:
- Anything under a
## Change logor## Refresh logheading is exempt — those sections exist to record what changed. - Any line carrying the literal marker
(historical)is exempt, for body prose that deliberately names a superseded figure.
Retired values must be dollar amounts. Percentages and bare numbers recur as bracket rates and are never declarable.
Round amounts used to be undeclarable too — that rule is retired, replaced by the Context column. The old rule was learned at the cost of 38 false positives: $30,000 of basis, $2,000 of gains, $18,000 of spending all recur inside worked examples, so declaring them flagged a dozen innocent lines and the check became noise. But the rule left a real hole, and the August 2026 P0 pass fell in it — the Roth catch-up wage threshold sat a year stale and could not be machine-checked, because $150,000 collides with TX-06’s senior-deduction phase-out in eight places.
The Context column closes it. A row may name a word that must appear on the same line for the value to count as that figure. F2026.ROTH_CATCHUP_WAGE declares catch-up; TX-06’s phase-out lines never say it, so they cannot fire, and the eight collisions become invisible instead of the figure becoming undeclarable. Leave the column empty for figures distinctive enough to stand alone — indexed and odd amounts ($3,076,000, $96,700, $202.90) still need nothing. A grep is still the right first move; the difference is that hits now mean “add a discriminator,” not “give up.”
Shorthand is matched automatically, and used to be a silent hole. A figure written ~$278k is a different string from $278,000, and the matcher rejects magnitude suffixes on purpose — $300k had been reading as $300. The consequence went unnoticed until the Washington capital-gains deduction turned out to have four carriers, every one in shorthand, and a runbook reporting none of them. The checker now generates a declared value’s own abbreviations ($278,000 → $278k; $3,000,000 → $3M) and matches those too, which recovered ten carriers across five figures on the first run. This does not reopen the $300k hole: the abbreviation is derived from the declared amount and means the same thing, while a declared $300 is still barred from matching $300k.
Curation procedure: before adding a value in either column, grep the corpus for it. Zero foreign hits means it is safe to declare bare. Hits mean one of three things — genuine drift to fix, a spelling the matcher now handles for you, or a value that needs a Context word to tell it apart from its collisions. $30,000, $15,000, $2,000 and $18,000 were rejected outright under the old rule; with a discriminator they are declarable, and the P0 pass showed why that matters.
The rule covers the Canonical column too, which is a lesson this table learned the hard way. The 2026 direct-primary-care caps — $150 and $300 — were declared canonical without the grep, on the reasoning that only retired values can produce false positives. That is wrong: a canonical value drives the refresh runbook, so a round one puts articles on the November sweep list that never carried the figure. Those two rows claimed eleven and nine articles; one article carried each. They were withdrawn, and the matcher was hardened to reject magnitude suffixes ($300k had been reading as $300). (Both caps would be declarable today with Context: direct primary care — but the second test below still rules them out, because each is carried by one article.)
One trap the Context column has already sprung, worth knowing before you use it. A numeric discriminator can match inside its own value: 65, the natural word for the age-65 additional deduction, is a substring of $1,650, so the row’s first run claimed HC-03’s “$1,650 under the 100% FPL line” — a worked example about something else — by reading the figure as its own evidence. The checker now searches the context in the line with the figure removed, which fixes it generally. Prefer a word to a number where you have the choice; the failure is silent and it looks like a true positive.
A second test, cheaper than the grep: the table exists for figures duplicated across articles. A figure that lives in one article has nothing for the runbook to sweep and does not need a row — cite it from that article’s prose instead, which is where the DPC caps now live (§7).
Refresh procedure: when a figure moves, put the new value in Canonical and the old one in Retired in the same commit. The checker then names every article still carrying the old figure — which is the November refresh runbook, generated rather than maintained by hand.
Stable IDs. Every figure carries an ID of the form F{year}.{SLUG}. The ID, not the label and certainly not the amount, is the durable handle: F2026.MFJ_STD survives the value moving from $32,200 to whatever 2027 brings, and it is what a change-impact question is asked in terms of. The year in the prefix is the plan year the figure governs, so a future page covering a second year adds F2027.* rows rather than overwriting these.
python3 .github/scripts/check_wiki.py --impact F2026.WA_ESTATE_EXCLUSIONThat prints the figure, its retired values, and every article carrying either — the blast radius of a change, before you make it. It is the same question the August 2026 Washington correction had to answer by grepping four candidate spellings by hand, and getting it wrong the first time.
Two things the checker now enforces about this table itself, because a numbers authority that disagrees with its own summary table is the worst of both worlds:
- Every ID is unique and well-formed. Two rows cannot claim the same handle.
- Every canonical value must appear elsewhere in this article. The table summarises FN-02’s figures; it may not declare one the body doesn’t carry, and it may not drift from the body when only one of the two is updated.
- No value may be canonical in one row and retired in another. That contradiction would make the retired-figure check fire on a correct article.
| ID | Label | Canonical (2026) | Retired | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
F2026.PART_B |
Part B standard premium | $202.90 | $185.00 · $174.70 | |
F2026.PART_B_DEDUCTIBLE |
Part B annual deductible | $283 | $257 | |
F2026.PART_D_CAP |
Part D out-of-pocket cap | $2,100 | — | |
F2026.PART_D_BASE |
Part D national base premium | $38.99 | $36.78 | |
F2026.MFJ_STD |
MFJ standard deduction | $32,200 | $29,200 | |
F2026.SINGLE_STD |
Single standard deduction | $16,100 | $14,600 | |
F2026.MFJ_LTCG_0 |
MFJ 0% LTCG ceiling | $98,900 | $96,700 · $94,050 | |
F2026.SINGLE_LTCG_0 |
Single 0% LTCG ceiling | $49,450 | $48,350 · $47,025 | |
F2026.MFJ_22_TOP |
MFJ 22% bracket top | $211,400 | $206,700 | |
F2026.QCD_LIMIT |
QCD annual limit | $111,000 | $108,000 · $105,000 | |
F2026.IRMAA_T1_SINGLE |
IRMAA tier-1 threshold, single | $109,000 | $106,000 · $103,000 | |
F2026.IRMAA_T1_MFJ |
IRMAA tier-1 threshold, MFJ | $218,000 | $212,000 · $206,000 | |
F2026.FPL400_HH1 |
400% FPL, household of 1 | $62,600 | $60,240 | |
F2026.FPL400_HH2 |
400% FPL, household of 2 | $84,600 | $81,760 | |
F2026.FPL138_HH2 |
138% FPL, household of 2 | $29,187 | $28,207 | |
F2026.MFJ_12_TOP |
MFJ 12% bracket top | $100,800 | — | |
F2026.STD_ADD_65_UNMARRIED |
Additional standard deduction, unmarried 65+ | $2,050 | — | |
F2026.STD_ADD_65_MARRIED |
Additional standard deduction, per married spouse 65+ | $1,650 | — | 65 |
F2026.PIA_BEND_1 |
PIA formula first bend point | $1,286 | — | |
F2026.PIA_BEND_2 |
PIA formula second bend point | $7,749 | — | |
F2026.EARNINGS_TEST |
Earnings test, under FRA all year | $24,480 | — | |
F2026.EARNINGS_TEST_FRA |
Earnings test, year reaching FRA | $65,160 | — | |
F2026.IRMAA_T2_MFJ |
IRMAA tier-2 threshold, MFJ | $274,000 | — | |
F2026.FPL100_HH1 |
100% FPL, household of 1 | $15,650 | — | |
F2026.FPL138_HH1 |
138% FPL, household of 1 | $21,597 | — | |
F2026.FPL200_HH2 |
200% FPL, household of 2 (BHP floor) | $42,300 | — | |
F2026.ESTATE_EXEMPTION |
Federal estate/gift exemption | $15,000,000 | $13,990,000 · $13,610,000 | |
F2026.GIFT_EXCLUSION |
Annual gift exclusion | $19,000 | — | |
F2026.HSA_SELF |
HSA contribution limit, self | $4,400 | $4,300 · $4,150 | |
F2026.HSA_FAMILY |
HSA contribution limit, family | $8,750 | $8,550 · $8,300 | |
F2026.WA_ESTATE_EXCLUSION |
Washington estate exclusion | $3,000,000 | $3,076,000 · $3,080,000 · $2,193,000 | |
F2025.WA_CAPGAINS_DEDUCTION |
Washington capital-gains standard deduction (tax year 2025 — the last DOR has published) | $278,000 | — | |
F2026.ROTH_CATCHUP_WAGE |
Roth catch-up wage threshold (prior-year wages) | $150,000 | $145,000 | catch-up |
A — in Retired means the predecessor figure was too round to retire safely (the Part D cap’s prior $2,000 and the gift exclusion’s prior $18,000 both collide with worked-example amounts). Those still get swept by hand each November; they just cannot be machine-checked.
The Washington row is the one this table was built for — every retired value in it was carried live somewhere in this corpus at some point during August 2026.
Refresh log
Section titled “Refresh log”| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | Page created; figures audited against IRS Rev. Procs. 2025-25/2025-32, SSA 2026 COLA fact sheet, CMS 2026 premium releases, KFF/CRS analyses |
| Aug 2026 | ◻️ closed — the 15% capital-gains ceilings were carried unverified. Rev. Proc. 2025-32 §3.03 read directly; all five filing statuses now exact and ✅, with head-of-household, MFS, and the estates-and-trusts line ($3,300) added — the last matters for anyone holding appreciated assets in a non-grantor trust. |
| Aug 2026 | Correction — max benefit claiming at 70 was carried as ~$5,251 (last year’s figure grossed up by the COLA). SSA’s own 2026 maximum-benefit answer is $5,181; max at 62 ($2,969) added alongside it. The COLA does not carry a max-benefit figure forward — each claiming-age maximum is recomputed. |
| Aug 2026 | Correction — the Washington estate tax line carried “top rate 35% — the nation’s highest,” which went stale on July 1, 2026. SB 6347 (signed March 2026) rolled the schedule back to the pre-2025 10%–20% brackets; 35% applied only to deaths from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. Verified against the Washington DOR estate tax and rate-table pages. The exclusion is $3,000,000 and frozen — SB 6347 re-tied indexing to the discontinued Seattle–Tacoma–Bremerton CPI, so the previously-carried “indexed” language and the ~$3.08M figure in ST-04 were both wrong going forward; $3,076,000 applied only through June 30, 2026. Note DOR’s rate-table page groups “July 1, 2026 and after” with the legacy $2,193,000 exclusion row — that grouping describes the rate schedule, not the exclusion, which DOR’s main estate tax page states as $3,000,000. |
| Aug 2026 | Gap closed — the Washington estate line stated the $3,000,000 exclusion as though it were the only live value. It is not: the exclusion is keyed to date of death, so $3,076,000 still governs deaths from Jan 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, and with returns due nine months after death those estates are open through March 2027. A reader settling one got the wrong number off this page. Both are now stated with their date ranges. The general point is worth more than the fix: the canonical/retired model assumes a figure supersedes its predecessor in time, and date-of-death figures break that assumption — two values are correct at once, distinguished by an event rather than by a plan year. The (historical) escape carries it, but the label understates what is going on. Any future estate, gift, or basis figure with the same shape needs the same treatment. |
| Aug 2026 | Correction — the Roth catch-up wage threshold (§3) was carried as “~$145k.” That is the 2024 threshold, which governed 2025 catch-ups; the figure governing 2026 catch-ups is $150,000 of 2025 wages (Notice 2025-67, §414(v)(7)(A)), read at source. The error is the one this page is built to catch and did not: a threshold that moves annually, carried a year behind, in prose rather than in a table — and so outside the canonical/retired machinery. $150,000 is far too round to declare (ten foreign hits, mostly TX-06’s senior-deduction phase-out), so this row stays hand-swept, like the — rows. The general lesson: a figure in a sentence is invisible to the runbook. |
| Aug 2026 | Runbook coverage nearly doubled — 16 figures / 55 copies → 28 / 89. Once spec 1.8.0 made shorthand and colliding values declarable, the corpus was swept for figures this page carries that two or more articles duplicate and the table did not declare. Eleven were added: both PIA bend points and both earnings-test thresholds (the SS-01/SS-04 pair, all four indexed annually and previously unswept), 100%/138% FPL for a household of one and 200% FPL for two, the IRMAA tier-2 MFJ line, the MFJ 12% bracket top, and both age-65 additional standard deductions. Three candidates were rejected on the grep, which is the procedure working: $50,400 and $12,400 have one genuine carrier each and fall to the one-article rule, and $3,300 is genuinely ambiguous in this corpus — it is both the estates-and-trusts 0% ceiling and 2 × $1,650, so no discriminator separates the meanings. What this buys is the November sweep: an SSA COLA release moves all four [SS] figures at once, and the runbook now names the articles instead of relying on someone remembering there were two. |
| Aug 2026 | P0 verification pass — first session with primary sources reachable. Every figure in §§1–8 was checked against its cited authority, not corroborated: Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (brackets ×3 statuses, standard deductions, §1(h) capital-gain ceilings ×5 statuses, gift exclusion, non-citizen-spouse exclusion, $15M estate/GST exemption), Notice 2025-67 (all retirement-plan limits, Roth phase-outs, QCD), Rev. Proc. 2025-19 (HSA/HDHP), the SSA 2026 COLA fact sheet and OACT bend-point tables, the CMS 2026 Parts A & B fact sheet (including all six IRMAA tiers), the 2026 Trustees Report summary, and the HHS poverty guidelines. One figure was wrong (the row above). Three ◻️ closed: §415(c) $72,000, the Roth IRA phase-out ranges, and the Part A deductible $1,736 — the last with its coinsurance amounts added, since a reader hitting the deductible needs the day-61 number next. The IRMAA table’s derived columns (surcharge and combined-annual) were re-computed from the CMS totals and all six tiers reconcile. |
| Nov 2026 | (scheduled) 2027 figures: Rev. Proc. 2026-26 ACA percentages already published (2.15%→10.22%); watch Senate action on enhanced PTC restoration. The 2026 HHS guidelines are already out ($15,960 + $5,680; 4-person $33,000) and govern the 2027 plan year — do not move §7 to them before then. |
Not advice. Educational reference only. Decisions with real money should be confirmed against primary sources — IRS publications, SSA.gov, Healthcare.gov, CMS — or a fee-only CFP/CPA.
Dollar figures, thresholds, and brackets are stated for the plan year named in each article’s header, and tax and healthcare rules change annually. Check theLast verified date at the top of the page before relying on a number.