What the paychecks you have left can still do, and a business question

By this point in October, most of what decides your 2026 tax bill has already happened. What’s left is whatever the remaining paychecks can still change, and that number gets smaller every two weeks.

That’s the part people tend to underestimate. A fix that would have been a small adjustment to your withholding in the spring turns into a noticeably smaller paycheck by November, because the same dollars get spread over fewer checks. Nothing about it is complicated. It just has a cutoff, and the cutoff arrives earlier than the calendar suggests, which is why I’d rather look at it now than in December.

Markets this week

For the trading week ending Friday, October 16, 2026:

• S&P 500: closed at 7,659.44, down 152.10 points (1.9%) for the week
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: closed at 52,002.41, up 347.46 points (0.7%) for the week
• Nasdaq Composite: closed at 26,140.03, down 1,226.14 points (4.5%) for the week

Closing levels from the Associated Press and TheStreet for October 16, 2026, and from the Associated Press for October 9, 2026.

RSU tax gap, late in the year

If the withholding on your RSU vests falls short of what you’ll owe, there are two ways to close the gap, and the IRS doesn’t treat them the same. Extra W-4 withholding is treated as paid in equal fourths on each of the four due dates unless you show otherwise, so it can help even for quarters that have already closed. A fourth-quarter estimated payment counts only when you actually make it (IRS, Instructions for Form 2210, 2025 revision). The practical limit is your paycheck. Withholding is a percentage of the checks you have left, so the later you start, the more it cuts into take-home pay, and at some point an estimated payment becomes the easier lever. Which one fits depends on your vest dates and your total income.

How the two fixes compare, with the form-level details

Disability coverage and the monthly cap

Most group long-term disability plans pay a percentage of covered earnings, up to a monthly dollar maximum (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Beyond the Numbers, February 24, 2015, using March 2014 data, so any dollar figures from that report are dated). For a higher earner, the maximum sets the check, not the percentage. In the post’s hypothetical, a 60 percent rate with a $10,000 monthly cap stops mattering at $200,000 of covered earnings, and at $400,000 the plan would replace about 30 percent. Whether benefits are taxable depends on how the premiums were paid (IRS Publication 525, 2025). Open enrollment is when the plan documents are in front of you.

How the cap works, and what to look for in your plan

A question every owner eventually faces

Sooner or later every owner asks: what is my business actually worth, and who decides?

There isn’t one number. A buyer generally prices a private business off its normalized earnings, meaning profit after adjusting for the owner’s pay and one-time items, and then asks how much of that would carry on without you. The IRS’s long-standing guidance on valuing closely held stock, Revenue Ruling 59-60 (1959), lists eight factors, including earning capacity and the company’s financial condition. The test I use is simple. If you took two weeks off, the business would be fine. What if it were six months? If the honest answer is that it would struggle, a buyer is likely to price that in. A formal valuation is a separate engagement, and BAS Financial doesn’t perform one. The right answer depends on individual circumstances.

What moves the multiple a buyer will pay

Worth a look this month

If you contribute to a 401(k) or 403(b), check your year-to-date deferrals against the 2026 limit of $24,500, $32,500 if you’re 50 or older, or $35,750 if you’re 60 to 63 (IRS, news release IR-2025-111, November 13, 2025). Dividing the room left by the paychecks left shows whether your current rate gets you there. Whether to change anything depends on your cash flow and your plan’s rules, including how your employer match works.