It is June. Your accountant filed your return in April, sent you a bill, and you paid it. Since then, silence. Meanwhile, your 2026 tax bill is being written right now, with every check you sign, every trip you take, and every piece of equipment you buy or skip this summer. Smart summer tax planning is the difference between shaping that number and simply reporting it next April.
Most business owners treat taxes as a January-through-April chore. The high earners know better. They understand that those months are just when you report what already happened. So if you actually want to change the outcome, you have to move now, in June, July, and August, before the window closes and your only option is writing a bigger check.
Below are five specific moves the highest-earning clients are making this summer. Not generic advice. Real strategies, with real math.
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Key Takeaways
- Run a mid-year tax projection now. By June you have half a year of real numbers, which means you still have time to act.
- Use summer-only strategies. Hiring your kids and the Augusta Rule are uniquely powerful in the warmer months.
- Plan equipment purchases early, not in a December panic, so you buy the right asset at the right price.
- Reset your S-Corp salary and fund retirement on a schedule, not in an April cash crunch.
- Finish the checklist by August 31. August is your last clean runway before Q4 sets the year’s trajectory.
Why Summer Tax Planning Beats the April Scramble
Here is what most business owners are doing with their taxes right now: nothing. They filed in April, mentally moved on, and will not think about it again until a questionnaire lands in February. That is the single most expensive habit a high earner can have.
The reason is simple. The IRS does not care when you think about your taxes. It cares about the decisions you made on its timeline. And most of the powerful strategies in the tax code carry deadlines that fall in June, July, and September, not on April 15.
This is also what separates a bookkeeper from a tax strategist. A bookkeeper records what happened. A strategist shapes what will happen. If you only talk to your CPA once a year, you are paying for a bookkeeper at a strategist’s price and leaving real money on the table.
Move 1: Run a Mid-Year Tax Projection Right Now
This first move is not glamorous, but it is the foundation for everything else. By June you have completed roughly half your tax year. You have real revenue, real expenses, and a clear sense of whether your business has grown, shrunk, or held flat. Most owners have no idea what they owe until March. Project it now, and you gain the one thing money cannot buy back: time to act.
Take a client we will call David, a service-based consultant pulling about $450,000 in revenue as an S-Corp. In June, his mid-year projection showed he was on track to owe $87,000 in federal taxes by April. That number told us exactly what to do. We accelerated three moves in Q3, and his April bill came in at $41,000. That is a $46,000 swing from a single June meeting.
A projection also tells you whether your quarterly estimates are right. Q2 estimates are due June 15, and Q3 is due September 15. If your business is growing while you pay estimates based on last year’s income, you may already be underpaying, and the IRS charges penalties quarter by quarter. The good news is that September 15 is your last chance to catch up before Q4. Knowing your real liability now means you stop guessing.
Ask your CPA for a mid-year projection. If they say they cannot run one until December, that answers your question about whether they are a bookkeeper or a strategist.
Move 2: Put Your Kids and Your Home to Work This Summer
Summer is when most owners have more family time, more flexibility, and more travel. Many CPAs call that personal life with no tax angle. That is wrong, and it costs business owners tens of thousands of dollars a year. Here are two strategies that are uniquely powerful in the summer months.
Hire Your Kids
If you have children roughly between ages 7 and 17, summer is the perfect time to put them on legitimate payroll. Under the tax code, you can pay your children for age-appropriate, real work such as social media, filing, office cleaning, or administrative tasks. That payment becomes a deductible business expense.
Consider a real estate investor we will call Renee, who has two teenagers, ages 14 and 16. She put both on payroll doing social media content, property photos, and office organization. Each earned $16,100, which is the 2026 standard deduction for a single filer, so $32,200 in wages came straight off her taxable income. Her kids owe zero federal income tax because their earnings fall below the standard deduction, and there are no payroll taxes either, since they are under 18 and working in a parent-owned unincorporated business. At her 37% marginal rate, that is $11,914 in tax savings from work that was actually getting done.
The rules matter here. The work has to be real and documented. The pay has to be reasonable, meaning what you would pay anyone else for the same job. And you need a paper trail: timesheets, job descriptions, and actual paychecks run through payroll. Do not hand your kid cash and call it wages.
Use the Augusta Rule
If you own a home and run an S-Corp, summer is an ideal time to schedule board meetings, strategy sessions, or team retreats at your personal residence. Under Section 280A, often called the Augusta Rule, your business can pay you fair market rent for up to 14 days a year. The business deducts the rent, and you receive it completely tax-free.
Fourteen days covers four quarterly board meetings plus a two-day annual retreat, or a three-day leadership offsite in July when the weather is good and your team is already loosened up. If your home would rent for $2,500 a day, that is $17,500 in tax-free income to you and $17,500 in deductions for your company from a single summer strategy window.
The rules are strict. You need fair market rent backed by comparables, documented meeting minutes, a genuine business purpose, and you cannot exceed 14 days, or that income becomes taxable. Done right, though, this is one of the cleanest strategies in the entire code.
Move 3: Plan Equipment Purchases Now, Not in December
Every year in the last two weeks of December, the phone lights up with owners asking whether they can buy something to reduce their taxes. The honest answer is yes, but they are doing it backwards. Making a $50,000 or $100,000 decision in 48 hours, driven by a tax bill rather than a business need, is how you end up with the wrong asset.
The smart move is to plan now. Under Section 179 and bonus depreciation, currently at 100% in 2026 under the new tax law, you can write off qualifying equipment, vehicles, and certain property improvements in the year you place them in service. That is the full deduction in year one. But you have to place the asset in service before December 31, which means bought, delivered, and in operational use, not ordered and sitting on a truck.
So if you know you need a vehicle, production equipment, a tech upgrade, or office improvements, summer is when to evaluate it. Get financing approved, compare vendors, and make a business decision that also happens to be a smart tax decision. A physician practice owner we will call Thomas used to scramble every December to spend $80,000 to $100,000 on gear he did not really need. We shifted his planning to Q2. He started identifying real needs in June, bought by August, and had time to negotiate better pricing. Same deduction, better assets, far less stress.
Move 4: Reset Your S-Corp Salary and Retirement Contributions
If you operate as an S-Corp, your salary is one of the most controllable tax levers you have. The IRS requires reasonable compensation, but within that band you have flexibility. Here is why June matters. If your business grew significantly in Q1 and Q2, the salary you set in January may no longer fit. Too low a salary in a high-revenue year invites audit risk, while too high a salary means unnecessary payroll taxes. Mid-year is when you review that number, well before December reveals you have been running payroll wrong all year.
Retirement contributions deserve the same mid-year attention. If you have a Solo 401(k) or SEP IRA, June and July are the right time to review your pace. For 2026, the Solo 401(k) employee contribution limit is $24,500, plus an extra $8,000 if you are 50 or older, or $11,250 if you are between 60 and 63. As the business owner, you can also make employer contributions, bringing your total to $72,000, or $80,000 at age 50 and up, or $83,250 between 60 and 63. That is real money you can move out of today’s taxable income and into your future.
Most owners think retirement contributions are an April thing. They are not. Waiting until March means pulling a large lump sum out of your business at the exact moment you are paying your tax bill. Instead, spread contributions across Q2 and Q3. You already know your income and your trajectory, so fund the account now, get compounding working earlier, and keep April from becoming a cash crisis.
The August Reset: Your Summer Tax Planning Checklist
August is the last real month before Q4 changes the pace of your business and your life. School starts, fourth-quarter planning kicks in, and the holiday stretch begins. So treat August as your final runway for clean mid-year adjustments. By August 31, a smart owner’s checklist should look like this:
- You have run your mid-year projection and know your estimated 2026 liability within a reasonable range.
- You have confirmed that your Q3 estimated payment due September 15 is accurate.
- If you have children, they are on payroll and actively working documented hours.
- If you have an S-Corp and a home, you have scheduled your summer board meeting with documented minutes.
- You have identified major equipment purchases to complete by December 31 and have a plan to execute them.
- Your S-Corp salary has been reviewed and your retirement contributions are on a monthly schedule, not a panic schedule.
Every item on that list has a dollar amount attached. The owners who finish it by the end of August consistently pay less than the ones who wait until Q4 to start thinking. This is not complicated. It is just proactive, and proactive is what the tax code rewards.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should business owners start tax planning for the year? Year round, but the most valuable window is summer. By June you have half a year of real numbers, which gives you time to act on a projection before deadlines in June, September, and December close.
Can I really put my children on payroll to lower my taxes? Yes, if the work is real, age-appropriate, and documented. Wages up to the standard deduction can be free of federal income tax for the child, and a parent-owned unincorporated business typically owes no payroll tax for children under 18. Keep timesheets, job descriptions, and run actual paychecks.
What is the Augusta Rule? Under Section 280A, you can rent your personal home to your business for up to 14 days a year. The business deducts the fair market rent and you receive it tax-free, as long as you have comparables, documented minutes, and a real business purpose.
Do I have to buy equipment before December 31 to deduct it? Yes. To claim Section 179 or bonus depreciation for the year, the asset must be placed in service by December 31, meaning purchased, delivered, and actually in use, not simply ordered.
How much can I contribute to a Solo 401(k) in 2026? The employee limit is $24,500, with catch-up amounts for older savers, and total contributions including the employer side can reach $72,000, or higher with catch-ups. Funding it across Q2 and Q3 avoids an April cash crunch.
The Bottom Line
Your 2026 tax bill will not be decided by what you do in April 2027. It will be decided by the structure you set up, the moves you execute, and the planning you do or skip this summer. The owners who pay the least share one habit: they treat tax planning as a year-round activity and stay in the driver’s seat instead of handing it to a CPA they speak with once a year.
The tax code is not an obstacle. It is a rule book, and once you know how to read it, you can rewrite your financial reality. So before you close this page, book a mid-year review with your tax advisor and ask for a 2026 projection. If they say they cannot do that until December, you now know exactly what to do with that information.
