Year-End Tax Planning Videos for Financial Advisors: What to Publish Before December (And How to Make It Work Next Year)

Executive Summary

I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve told advisors again and again to get their seasonal videos done early. That advice is right. However. It skips the part that matters. Year-end tax planning videos for financial advisors don’t run on your calendar. They run on the IRS’s. Every fall, the IRS publishes next year’s numbers, and in every year from 2021 through 2025, the busiest September-to-November week for Google searches on “tax brackets” was the week the announcement landed (Google Trends, 2021–2026). (The IRS doesn’t send a calendar invite. Somebody should suggest it.)

So whenever you’re reading this, the play is the same. Script NOW. Get it to compliance now. Create it now. Drop in the new numbers the day they’re released.

Inside: the year-end tax topics people actually search for (spoiler: not “year-end tax planning”), when that demand shows up, the two kinds of tax videos, a CFP® whose January brackets video pulled 248,483 views and feeds a lead magnet he rebuilds every year (verified channel metrics, September 28, 2026), your compliance obligations, and a six-video series you can plan in one sitting.

What Year-End Tax Planning Videos for Financial Advisors Actually Get Searched?

Tax is the most common secondary theme in advisor marketing content, at 50%, yet it’s the primary focus for just 7% of advisors (Kitces Research, 2026). So half of advisors treat tax as a side topic, and almost nobody leads with it. That’s your opening.

But the truth is, nobody searches for your season. In a five-year comparison against “tax brackets” and “backdoor Roth,” the phrase “year end tax planning” never registered on YouTube search and never cleared Google’s lowest reportable level on web search (Google Trends, 2021–2026). People search the move. “Year-end tax planning” is your framing. “Should I do a Roth conversion?” is their question.

And the moves run on a clock:

  • Tax-loss harvesting search interest peaked in December in every year from 2021 through 2025 on web search, and in every year with reported data on YouTube search. Web interest started climbing in November each of those years (Google Trends, 2021–2025).
  • Roth conversion searches peaked in December in every year from 2021 through 2025, on both web and YouTube search (Google Trends, 2021–2025).
  • Donor-advised fund searches peaked in December on web search in all five complete years, and required minimum distribution searches did in four of those five (Google Trends, 2021–2025).
  • Backdoor Roth runs a little later. On YouTube search, its busiest week of the tax season (July through June) landed in the last week of December or the first week of January in four of the five seasons from 2021–22 through 2025–26 (Google Trends, 2021–2026).

Most of those are decisions that generally have to be made by December 31. That’s where your videos belong. Someone typing “Roth conversion” into a search bar in December isn’t browsing. They have a decision to make and a deadline to make it by, and they want to hear from someone who does this for a living.

Your lane: the decisions with a deadline

When I searched “year-end tax” on YouTube in a private window, several results were CPAs’ videos posted roughly ten months earlier. And that’s actually good news for you. CPAs are used by 89% of advisors who work with centers of influence (Kitces Research, 2026), so the CPA publishing tax videos is more likely your referral partner than your competitor. The way I see it, the CPA’s content lives in filing season, and it’s about what already happened and what’s owed. Your content lives before December 31, and it’s about the decisions that can still change the answer. The CPA does the autopsy. You do the physical.

Video is the right format for that job. Kitces Research found video carries a high client acquisition cost, and still calls it “the most successful content-related tactic given its ability to really show how the advisor communicates as a way to build trust and engage prospects” (Kitces Research, 2026). Tax decisions are exactly where a prospect wants to see how you think.

I made the broader case for tax content that compounds in the report on tax season content that works year-round. This is the fall edition, and fall has one thing spring doesn’t: a scheduled reset.

The IRS Hands Out the Answer Key Every Fall

The IRS released the next year’s inflation-adjusted tax numbers between October 9 and November 10 in every year from 2021 through 2025 (IRS, 2021–2025). You can’t know the exact day. You can know the season.

From September through November, the busiest week for Google searches on “tax brackets” was the announcement week in all five years from 2021 through 2025. On YouTube search, the busiest week of the entire year for “tax brackets” landed between mid-October and mid-November in every complete year from 2022 through 2025. Then the demand comes back: on Google, the year’s overall high for “tax brackets” arrived in January every year from 2022 through 2025, when filing season sends everyone back to check (Google Trends, 2021–2026).

So, what does that mean? That means the announcement creates a spike you can prepare for, and the season runs into January.

Two kinds of year-end tax videos (only one waits for the IRS)

The moves video. Roth conversions, tax-loss harvesting, RMDs and qualified charitable distributions, charitable bunching and donor-advised funds, maxing this year’s retirement contributions. These videos are about this year’s decisions, and this year’s numbers came out months ago. The 2026 401(k) employee contribution limit, for example, was published as $24,500 on November 13, 2025 (IRS, 2025). There’s nothing to wait for. Script it, send it to compliance, create it, and get it live before the December wave. If you built the YouTube content calendar for financial advisors I laid out for the fourth quarter, most of these are already on it.

The numbers video. The annual “next year’s tax brackets and limits” video, with the year in the title. It can’t be finished until the IRS publishes, but almost all the work can happen now. Write the script with blanks where the figures go. Get the structure and disclosure language through compliance. The day the IRS releases the numbers, fill in the blanks, send the final script through review, create it, and publish. You’re not racing other advisors to write a script. You’re racing them to fill in blanks. And that race is a hell of a lot shorter.

One numbers video, rebuilt every year

Jacob Duke, CFP®, of Rivertree Wealth runs this system in the open. His video “2026 Tax Brackets Just Changed – Here’s What Retirees Need To Know” went up on January 3, 2026, and shows 248,483 views, on a channel with 30.2K subscribers, 216 videos, and 3,012,972 total views (verified channel metrics, September 28, 2026). That’s about 8% of the channel’s total views from one of its 216 videos. The first call to action in its description reads “✅ Get your Important Numbers 2026 PDF here:” and leads to a form-gated page offering a free 2026 Important Numbers PDF, while the page for the 2025 edition is still live (Rivertree Wealth, 2026).

So there you go. The numbers change every year, and the system stays exactly the same. A video with the year in the title, a PDF with the year in its name, and a landing page for each edition. The IRS writes his new material every fall, and every edition asks the viewer for an email address.

Now, would that video have done better published in October, closer to the announcement? I don’t know, because there’s no control group. What the data does say is that publishing 86 days after the IRS release wasn’t too late, which fits the January pattern above. So again, the window is a whole season. Show up early and your video is there for all of it.

Apply to Work With Us if you’d rather have my team script the series, package it for your compliance team, and have the numbers video ready to go the week the IRS publishes.

This Week’s Video Opportunities

Three timely topics, each with a year-end tax angle built in.

1. The 10-Year Treasury Hit Its Highest Level Since 2007. What It Means for Your Bonds, Your Cash, and Your Taxes

  • The Angle: The 10-year Treasury yield “climbed as high as 5.12%, its highest level since 2007” (Yahoo Finance, September 23, 2026). Explain why bond prices fall when yields rise, what that means for cash and new bond purchases, and how bond losses can sometimes be harvested before December 31 (wash-sale rule in mind). Scenarios, not predictions.
  • Target Audience: Retirees and pre-retirees with large fixed-income and cash allocations.
  • Why Now: The rate headline is fresh, and the harvesting deadline doesn’t move.

2. Retiring Before 65? The Health Insurance Subsidy Cliff Is Back

  • The Angle: Enhanced ACA premium subsidies expired at the end of 2025, and the “subsidy cliff” is back: households with income above 400% of the federal poverty line aren’t eligible for any premium relief (AJMC, April 16, 2026). For 2026 coverage in the 48 contiguous states, that line sits at $62,600 for a household of one and $84,600 for two (Health Reform: Beyond the Basics, July 2025). A December Roth conversion or a large capital gain can push this year’s income over it. Show how to plan around the line. Procedural, no policy commentary.
  • Target Audience: Early retirees and pre-65 couples buying marketplace coverage.
  • Why Now: Most of this year’s income decisions have to be made by December 31.

3. Pulling From Your IRA to Cover the Bills? Here’s What It Really Costs

  • The Angle: 69% of CFP® professionals report their clients have grown more worried about affordability over the past 12 months, and 50% say affordability pressures are driving some clients to reactive decisions, including early withdrawals from retirement accounts (29%) (CFP Board, September 23, 2026). Show the tax cost of an early withdrawal and the alternatives worth comparing first, like cash reserves or spreading a withdrawal across tax years. No judgment. Just math.
  • Target Audience: Pre-retirees and business owners under cash-flow pressure.
  • Why Now: The survey is days old, and a withdrawal taken in December lands on this year’s return.

Timely videos can catch this month’s searches. The evergreen moves videos can keep catching them every December after. Make both.

How to Make Year-End Tax Planning Videos for Financial Advisors Work Next Year, Too

YouTube estimates a video’s relevance to a search by looking at factors such as “how well the title, tags, description, and video content match your search query” (YouTube Help, 2026). So let the words around a tax video carry the year-specific details. Same principle as evergreen YouTube content for financial advisors: build the part that doesn’t expire, and keep the part that does somewhere you can edit.

Don’t tattoo this year’s numbers on the video

Say it on camera the evergreen way. “This year’s contribution limit.” “The current standard deduction.” Then put the dollar figure and the tax year in the description and a pinned comment. When the IRS publishes new figures, you update two text boxes, not a video.

Fix, don’t re-upload. If a segment goes stale, YouTube lets you cut the beginning, middle, or end of a published video without re-uploading it. Its help page is explicit: “The video’s URL, view count, and comments will stay the same” (YouTube Help, 2026). One catch: for “unedited video with over 100,000 views, you may not be able to save changes to it, except to blur faces” unless your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program (YouTube Help, 2026). What you don’t do is re-upload a moves video every fall to make it look new. A re-upload is the same video starting over at zero views. The report on YouTube’s inauthentic content policy covers where YouTube draws the monetization line on repeated uploads. 

Make a new numbers video every year. A video with last year’s year in the title has done its job. Create a fresh one when the new numbers land, then point the old video’s description and pinned comment to it.

Publish the words, not just the video. YouTube’s own search already looks at the video content itself, as its help page says above. Your website is a different story. Kitces Research notes that search engines typically can’t index the content of a video unless a separate indexable transcript is published (Kitces Research, 2026). Post each video’s transcript or a written summary on your website, with the numbers in a box you update every year. If titles, descriptions, and chapters are new territory, start with the report on YouTube SEO for financial advisors.

Your compliance obligations (a reminder, not advice)

I’m not a compliance officer or an attorney, and I don’t provide compliance guidance in these reports. What I can do is remind you of obligations you already have:

Plan the series in one sitting

Here’s the whole build, sized for an advisor with two hours a week to give it:

  1. Pick the five moves your clients ask about most.
  2. Script all five, plus the numbers video with blanks where the figures go.
  3. Submit all six to compliance as one batch.
  4. Create the five moves videos in one session with one setup, and publish them as they clear, before December.
  5. Publish the numbers video the week the IRS releases the new figures.

And don’t confuse doing it all yourself with commitment. In Kitces’s words, “the firms that market most effectively are often the ones in which the advisor markets less (and the firm markets more on their behalf)” (Kitces Research, 2026). Your expertise is the part nobody else can supply. The scripting, packaging, and production are the parts somebody else can.

Advisor Marketing Intel

Winning a New Client Got Cheaper The typical client acquisition cost was $2,551 in 2026, down from $3,800 in Kitces’s 2024 report, and the typical practice spent $0.70 in marketing for every $1.00 of new client revenue, earning it back in approximately 8.4 months, down from $1.09 in 2024 (Kitces Research, 2026). Why it matters: Kitces notes that for most advisors, marketing remains far more cost-effective than acquiring clients through M&A transactions “often valued at 2.5x–3.5x revenue” (Kitces Research, 2026). So if growth is the goal, the math still favors organic marketing.

AI Search Is Loud. It Isn’t Sending Many Clients Yet. Answer engine optimization (AEO), meaning content built to show up in AI tools like ChatGPT, entered the Kitces survey for the first time with a 10% usage rate and one of the highest costs per dollar of new revenue of any tactic, at $3.45, versus $0.45 for SEO (Kitces Research, 2026). The report’s own summary: “relatively few clients appear to be contacting advisors because they were recommended by an AI chatbot” (Kitces Research, 2026). Why it matters: a library that’s easy to find, with clear titles, descriptions, and published transcripts, covers the search that pays today without betting the budget on the one that might pay later.

FAQ: Year-End Tax Planning Videos for Financial Advisors

What year-end tax planning videos should a financial advisor make? Make videos about the moves, not the season. Roth conversion and tax-loss harvesting searches on Google peaked in December every year from 2021 through 2025 (Google Trends, 2021–2025), while “year end tax planning” barely registers (Google Trends, 2021–2026). Cover Roth conversions, tax-loss harvesting, RMDs and qualified charitable distributions, donor-advised funds, and maxing retirement contributions, plus one annual numbers video.

Is it too late to publish year-end tax videos in October or November? No. The moves videos still have the December wave ahead of them, and the annual numbers video can’t go live until the IRS releases the figures, which happened between October 9 and November 10 every year from 2021 through 2025 (IRS, 2021–2025). One CFP®’s brackets video posted January 3 shows 248,483 views (verified channel metrics, September 28, 2026).

How do financial advisors keep tax videos accurate when the IRS changes the numbers every year? Keep the numbers out of the video itself. Say “this year’s limit” on camera, and put the dollar figure and tax year in the description and pinned comment, which you can edit anytime. For the annual numbers video, create a new video each year.

Can a financial advisor talk about taxes on YouTube without compliance problems? Yes, through your firm’s review process and with approved disclaimers. RIAs keep copies of advertisements under Rule 204-2 (SEC, 2020), and BD-affiliated advisors need principal approval under FINRA Rule 2210 (FINRA, 2025). Educate, don’t promise savings, and label every figure’s tax year. I’m not a compliance officer, so your compliance team gets the final word.

Should I update last year’s tax video or make a new one? Update the evergreen moves video; make a new numbers video. A moves video only needs its description and pinned comment refreshed with the new figures. A numbers video with last year’s year in the title needs a fresh version, not a re-upload of the old file. Then point the old one to the new one.

How many year-end tax videos does a financial advisor need? Six is a strong series: five evergreen moves videos plus one annual numbers video. Kitces found higher-frequency video producers (40 episodes a year) had a 67% success rate versus 50% for lower-frequency producers (2 a year), on a small sample (Kitces Research, 2026).

Weekly Challenge

Take one hour. List the five year-end moves your clients ask about most and outline each in five bullets. Then outline a sixth: next year’s numbers video, with blanks where the IRS figures go. Send all six to your compliance contact in one batch with one question: “If I send the new numbers the day the IRS releases them, how fast can you clear the final script?” Their answer is your publish date.

Additional Resources (Because Knowledge Without Action Is Just Trivia)

Knowledge is power, but implementation is profit. Here are YT Era resources to accelerate your success (yes, we’re shamelessly plugging our stuff… at least this stuff is FREE and we’re honest about it):

The Part Where We Ask You To Do Something

You now have the topics, the timing, and the two-video system. What you might not have is the bandwidth to script six videos, walk them through compliance, and be camera-ready when the IRS moves the numbers. That’s what my team does. We plan the series with you, write it, package it for compliance, and handle production and optimization, so your part stays at roughly two hours a week.

Apply to Work With Us and we’ll have your year-end series in review before the IRS finishes its math.

Fair warning: we only work with advisors who are tired of pretending the pipeline will fix itself.

Disclaimer

This report is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or marketing advice. Results vary significantly based on implementation, market conditions, and individual circumstances. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Any earnings or income statements are estimates based on documented case studies. Your results may differ substantially. Success requires consistent effort, strategic implementation, and ongoing optimization.

Before implementing any marketing strategies discussed in this report, consult with your compliance department or legal counsel to ensure alignment with your firm’s policies and regulatory requirements.

Sources (For The Skeptics)

Because apparently “trust me bro” isn’t a valid citation anymore:

Primary Research Reports:

  • CFP Board. (2026, September 23). CFP® professionals: More than 7 in 10 clients count viability of Social Security and Medicare among top affordability concerns ahead of midterms [Press release; survey of 440 CFP® professionals, fielded July 9–27, 2026]. GlobeNewswire[dot]com.
  • FINRA. (2024, June 25). Finfluencers: New marketing strategies meet existing compliance obligations [Podcast episode; findings from the social media influencer targeted exam]. In FINRA Unscripted. FINRA[dot]org.
  • Kitces Research. (2026). The Kitces Report, Volume 2, 2026: How financial planners actually market their services (2026 marketing study; 506 qualified responses, fielded March 6–April 13, 2026). Kitces[dot]com.

Case Study Sources:

  • Jacob Duke, CFP®. (2026, September 28). Verified YouTube channel and video metrics via direct inspection (@RetirementAnswers), including “2026 Tax Brackets Just Changed – Here’s What Retirees Need To Know” (published January 3, 2026) and its description. YouTube[dot]com.
  • Rivertree Wealth. (2026). Get your free 2026 Important Numbers PDF and Important Numbers 2025 PDF [Lead-capture pages]. RivertreeWealth[dot]com.

Industry Data:

  • AJMC. (2026, April 16). FAQs about expiration of enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. AJMC[dot]com.
  • FINRA. (2025). FINRA Rule 2210: Communications with the public. FINRA[dot]org.
  • Health Reform: Beyond the Basics. (2025, July). Yearly guidelines and thresholds: Coverage year 2026. HealthReformBeyondTheBasics[dot]org.
  • IRS (Internal Revenue Service). (2021–2025). Tax inflation adjustments for tax years 2022 through 2026 (IR-2021-219, November 10, 2021; IR-2022-182, October 18, 2022; IR-2023-208, November 9, 2023; IR-2024-273, October 22, 2024; IR-2025-103, October 9, 2025) [News releases]. IRS[dot]gov.
  • IRS (Internal Revenue Service). (2025, November 13). 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500 (IR-2025-111) [News release]. IRS[dot]gov.
  • SEC. (2020). Investment adviser marketing rule (Rule 206(4)-1) and related amendments to Rule 204-2, adopted December 22, 2020. SEC[dot]gov.
  • Yahoo Finance. (2026, September 23). 10-year Treasury yield hits highest level since 2007 as market prices in another Fed rate hike (I. Ferré). Finance[dot]Yahoo[dot]com.

Platform Documentation:

  • Google Trends. (2021–2025). Search interest in tax-loss harvesting, Roth conversion, required minimum distributions, and donor-advised funds, United States, web search and YouTube search, July 2021–July 2026 (retrieved July 29, 2026). Trends[dot]Google[dot]com.
  • Google Trends. (2021–2026). Search interest comparison of qualified charitable distribution, backdoor Roth, tax brackets, 401(k) contribution limit, and year end tax planning, United States, web search and YouTube search, September 26, 2021–September 27, 2026 (retrieved September 2026). Trends[dot]Google[dot]com.
  • YouTube Help. (2026). How YouTube search works. Support[dot]Google[dot]com.
  • YouTube Help. (2026). Trim your videos. Support[dot]Google[dot]com.

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