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2026 Tax Filing Starts, Silver still on a tear, lookout 1099s are coming

Published 4 months ago • 4 min read

Romeo Razi, CPA

Jan 26th

Tax Season 2025: "time to buckle up"

January 26, 2026 - the day the IRS music starts, and for the rest of us, the financial dirge begins.
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That's right, filing season officially opens today. But before your sprint toward your refund like it's a Taylor Swift ticket drop, let's talk about what's really going on behind the IRS curtain.

Thanks to the OBBBA (One Big Beautiful Bill Act), Americans got two things: a boatload of tax breaks, and....drumroll please.... IRS org chart restructuring.

⚙️📉Goal: Modernizing the IRS and cutting wasteful spending
🏛️🧱Reality: Bureaucratic Jenga.

IRS new plan (or rearranging deck chairs on the titanic!?)

The IRS promises a "significant personnel and operational reorganization" to modernize the agency. Translation: lots of new titles, fewer actual humans answering phones.

The agency is bleeding staff faster than the Titanic took on water. Retirements, buyouts, and attrition have gutted headcount just as Congress passed the most complex tax overhaul in years. It's like asking someone to perform open-heart surgery with a fork while the patient's running a marathon.

What this means for you:

📁 File early
↳ The longer you wait, the deeper in the muck you'll be
↳ Get ahead of the backlog and inevitable delays

✅ Double-check everything
↳ Mistakes will take months to fix, not weeks
↳ Errors could mean waiting until summer for your refund

⏰ Expect delays
↳ Call hold times will make Dante's Inferno feel brisk
↳ Assume chaos. Pray for competence.

So yes, the IRS is open for business, and ready for you to file. But think of it as the DMV on April 15th, with fewer chairs and worse coffee.

🏠 Housing Corner

Housing is still stagnant. The number of mortgages with sub-3% rates are approximately ~12 million. That's 22% of all outstanding mortgage loans (that number is down from 33% in 2021).
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Which means if you're sitting on one of those, you will be very reluctant to give it away.

💹

Interest Rates

6.40%

🏡 🏡 🏡
Inventory

743,006

🧊

Days on Market

56 days

Here's a quick list of the housing stats over the last 1 weeks:
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🏠 Mortgage rates: 6.40% (gone down a little)
📈 Inventory: 743,006 homes (up sellers, less buyers)
📉 Price reductions? 34.65% (overall pricing adjustments still going down)
💰 Median list price? $445,000 (but median prices going up)
🕰️ Median days on market? 56 (down a bit, so things are moving).

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Market Highlights

Commodities are still killing it

~ S&P 500 $7,116 (+3.95%)

~ Nasdaq $24,542 (+5.59%)

~ Silver $78.43 (+11.08%)

~ Gold $4,750 (+9.43%)

BTC, a hedge against when the stock market goes up

~ BTC $78,823 (-9.83%)
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🚨Upcoming Tax Deadlines you should be aware of:
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🗓May

  • 🏢May 15th - Non-profit tax returns due.

🗓June

  • 🏢June 15th - 2026 Q2 Estimated Tax Payment due

🗓July

  • 🏢July 31st - 5500 Pension Tax Returns Due
  • Your 401k company handles that, unless you have a solo 401k
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What's been going on with your Favorite CPA
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Tax season is here, and as you can imagine, I'm quite busy...but one of my friends cooked me dinner last night, so that's a win!
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If there is anything specific you want me to cover in the upcoming weeks, please let me know.

Until next time ❤️

Romeo Razi, CPA

​Taxedright.com​
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600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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Tax Ticker

by Romeo Razi, CPA

A weekly newsletter for people who want to understand money without needing therapy afterward. I cover accounting, tax, and finance the way they should be taught. Simple, sharp, and with a sense of humor. If knowledge is power, this one’s your caffeine shot.

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