Upcoming elections featuring two presidential candidates with widely divergent views on taxes might be paralyzing clients and causing them to hold off on tax planning. Still, some moves are not only possible, but smart—if they’re done soon enough.

“It isn’t the time to wait,” said Bill Smith, managing director for CBIZ MHM’s national tax offic in Bethesda, Md. “Lots of ideas need planning by year-end and may involve other professionals who will be busy then.”

“We’re in a wait-and-see mode, but it doesn’t mean we should be doing nothing,” said Julia Carlson, CEO of Financial Freedom Wealth Management Group in Newport, Ore. “The goal between now and the election is to position our clients so that the heavy lifting is done and executing the implementation of our advice will be easy.”

“We’re targeting the fourth quarter for tax-planning opportunities to lock in the current low rates for this year where possible,” added Chris Hardy, managing director at Georgia-based Paramount Tax and Accounting.

The election will determine whether there's continuity or change in the nation's tax laws, advisors noted.

“If there’s a split between the White House and Congress, there’s less of a chance the president’s tax program will be fully adopted and far more likely that the current tax law will remain intact until [tax reform’s] sunset,” said Louis Sands, a CPA and partner at Sikich in Naperville, Ill.

“The tax law is unlikely to be different in 2021, but legislation could be passed to impact 2022 and moving forward if there’s a Democratic sweep,” added Philip “Rusty” Ross, a CPA and senior wealth advisor at Exencial Wealth Advisors in Oklahoma City.

Biden proposes a top tax bracket of 39.6% for ordinary income in excess of $400,000. “In response, many firms are accelerating income and paying bonuses in 2020,” said Gail Rosen, a CPA in Martinsville, N.J.

Biden also proposes hiking the tax rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividend income for taxpayers with income exceeding $1 million. “For taxpayers at this income level, if they sell stock and have $100,000 of capital gains in 2020, they can potentially save $20,000 of taxes rather than under a Biden administration increase,” Rosen said. “Trump is proposing lowering the top capital gains rate from 20% to 15% and he’s spoken about indexing capital gains for inflation.”

Biden has also proposed to disallow like-kind exchanges and prohibit real estate investors with income exceeding $400,000 from using real estate losses to offset other income.

Among investment tax strategies, clients who invest in mutual funds should be looking for the funds’ expected capital gain distributions for the end of the year, which could impact the amount to realize gains and losses ahead of the distributions, Ross said.

“Now is the time to harvest tax losses by selling stocks with capital losses. If you want to continue to invest in these stocks going forward, you can wait 30 days to buy them back or buy back a similar stock or fund to avoid wash-sale rules,” added Brian Stoner, a CPA in Burbank, Calif.

“Taxpayers with a capital gain triggered by in an installment sale in 2020 might want to consider electing out of installment sale treatment and recognize the entire gain in 2020 at possibly lower tax rates,” said Jim Brandenburg, CPA and partner in the Milwaukee office of Sikich.

Planning taxes this year might well mean being able to pivot on strategies and use tools in different ways. If Biden wins, for instance, clients who are selling assets and who realize more than $1 million in gains might want to sell the asset in an installment agreement to stay under Biden’s proposed new income threshold on higher long-term capital gains, Ross said.

Above all, this is a moment to engage with clients, advisors said.

“Will there be changes? Of course. Just ask the client what they think and what they’re worried about,” said Jamie Hopkins, managing director at Carson Coaching and director of retirement research at Carson Group in Philadelphia. “It also gets away from focusing on [just] short-term tax implications.”