Treasury Regulatory Agenda and What Practitioners Should Track in 2025
Treasury’s 2025–2026 Priority Guidance Plan narrows the regulatory agenda to 105 projects, giving practitioners a clearer basis for deciding what to track. Its structure points to where guidance is most likely to affect client work before June 2026. The practical conclusion is to concentrate monitoring on active implementation and compliance changes, rather than treating every project (or every omission) as equally urgent.
What the 2025–2026 Priority Guidance Plan is and why it works differently from its predecessor
Treasury and the IRS released the plan on September 30, 2025, covering July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. It is the first Priority Guidance Plan of the current Trump Administration. Its project count is roughly half that of its predecessor, reflecting a decision to list guidance the agencies actually intend to release within the plan year. That narrower scope distinguishes it from a broader inventory of regulatory work that might eventually be completed.
The plan identifies five focus areas, which are OBBBA implementation, deregulation and burden reduction, Tribal tax issues, digital assets, and the SECURE 2.0 Act. OBBBA implementation is the largest cluster, followed by deregulation and burden reduction. Two §501(c)(3) projects sit outside those categories. Projects removed from the prior plan fall outside the five priorities, although some may return in a future year.
The plan nevertheless provides no deadlines for individual projects. The joint statement by Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Kenneth Kies, Acting Commissioner Scott Bessent, and Acting Chief Counsel Kenneth Kies preserves the ability to add projects during the year, particularly further deregulatory items. The document therefore identifies intended resource allocation without promising completion dates. Its boundaries are deliberate, but they are not fixed.
How the deregulatory executive order shaped the plan's composition before a single project was selected
An executive order directing agencies to identify at least ten existing regulations for repeal for every new regulation issued shaped the selection process. That requirement is a substantial increase over the first Trump term’s two-for-one rule. It makes removal of existing rules a central part of the agenda. The composition of the plan reflects that starting point.
Notice 2025-19 set out how projects would be chosen before the list appeared. It led with questions about whether guidance may be unconstitutional, rest on unlawful delegation, or conflict with the “best reading” of the underlying statute. The usual tests, including whether guidance would resolve broad taxpayer issues and reduce controversy, came after those deregulatory criteria. Treasury and the IRS had also identified nearly a hundred regulations for removal through Notices 2025-22, 2025-23, and 2025-36 before releasing the plan.
This sequence explains why familiar projects disappeared without being completed. Their removal was a consequence of the new selection framework. Estate and gift projects were particularly affected. For practitioners, the distinction matters because an unfinished project no longer on the agenda offers a weaker basis for expecting near-term guidance.
OBBBA implementation projects and the open questions affecting 2025 returns
The OBBBA, enacted July 4, 2025, generated the largest block of implementation work on the plan. Its provisions affect 2025-year positions before all relevant regulations can be finalized. Practitioners must therefore work with a mix of statutory changes, transition rules, proposed regulations, and implementation notices. The immediate task is to distinguish what each form of guidance settles from what remains open.
The tips deduction under §224 illustrates that distinction. A proposed regulation defines eligible occupations and “qualified tips,” but transition relief for the SSTB exclusion has no set end date. Final regulations issued in April 2026 reserved the SSTB issue for future proposed regulations. The treatment of that exclusion therefore remains a separate interpretive question from the deduction’s other requirements.
The overtime deduction under §225 presents a different problem, centered on the information available to support a claim. Transition rules let workers approximate qualified overtime from pay stubs that may not show separately which overtime is eligible under federal wage-and-hour law. That relief addresses a practical gap in payroll records without making all overtime eligible for the deduction. Advice on 2025 returns must account for both the statutory category and the permitted approximation.
The SALT cap rises to $40,000 for single and joint filers earning under $500,000 in 2025, subject to a phase-down to $10,000. The cap and phaseout thresholds rise 1% annually through 2029, after which the cap reverts to $10,000. Sections 174 and 174A permanently restore immediate domestic R&E deductibility, reversing the TCJA amortization requirement. Rev. Proc. 2025-28, published September 15, 2025, in IRB 2025-38, provides implementation guidance for that change.
International provisions require a separate stream of attention because their terminology and effective dates are changing. GILTI becomes “net CFC tested income” (NCTI), with the effective rate raised to 12.6% after December 31, 2025, and the §250 GILTI deduction permanently reduced to 40%. FDII becomes “foreign-derived deduction eligible income” (FDDEI). Notices 2025-72, 2025-75, 2025-77, and 2025-78 signal forthcoming proposed regulations, making them markers of work in progress.
The remaining near-term issues do not all operate on the return-filing calendar. Notice 2025-68, issued December 2, 2025, announces intended regulations for Trump Accounts, the new tax-advantaged individual retirement-type accounts for eligible children under 18, including special rules during the growth period. Developers beginning construction before July 4, 2026 qualify for §§45Y and 48E credits under pre-OBBBA rules. August 2025 guidance modified the beginning-of-construction framework that solar and wind developers had relied on since 2013, making that guidance directly relevant to ongoing project advice.
The deregulatory track and two rollbacks changing compliance obligations
The 46-project deregulatory block does not uniformly reduce compliance work. Two partnership-related rollbacks replace existing or proposed requirements with uncertainty about reporting, elections, and the rules that will ultimately apply. Their significance lies in the obligations that change during the transition. Practitioners must model those changes rather than assume that withdrawal eliminates the need for analysis.
The partnership basis-shifting transaction-of-interest regulations under §1.6011-18 were published on January 14, 2025. They required taxpayers and material advisors to report certain related-party basis adjustment transactions. Notice 2025-23, published April 17, 2025, said that Treasury planned to remove the regulations entirely. It also offered taxpayers and material advisors the option to apply the removal retroactively to January 14, 2025, treating the regulations as if they never took effect. Final removal has not yet been published, so the announced treatment and the rulemaking’s completion remain distinct developments.
Notice 2025-28 changes how corporations must assess compliance under CAMT when they invest in partnerships. It partially withdraws prior proposed regulations and introduces new partner- and partnership-level elections. A partner who makes the taxable-income election must keep track of both regular tax basis and CAMT basis. Having to determine fair market value each year for non-publicly traded interests adds compliance work and could trigger an audit. Because proposed regulations have not yet been issued, election decisions precede knowledge of their final shape.
The plan’s two §501(c)(3) projects raise a different kind of uncertainty. One looks at how fundamental public policy against racial discrimination applies when deciding whether a private school has exempt status. The other concerns the Johnson Amendment’s prohibition on political campaign intervention. Both are connected to ongoing litigation and signal potential rulemaking in areas previously treated as settled. Practitioners should track legal developments in both projects while keeping open what the outcome will be and how much obligations may change.
Digital assets and the filing pressure behind a small project cluster
The six digital asset projects carry urgency that their small number obscures. Brokers must track gross proceeds for transactions occurring during 2025 and report them in 2026 on Form 1099-DA. Penalty waivers under §§6721 and 6722 apply to 2025 sales where there is good-faith filing. That relief does not make the reporting timetable dependent on completion of the remaining guidance projects.
For transactions occurring on or after January 1, 2026, brokers must track both gross proceeds and cost basis, but mandatory cost-basis reporting applies only to covered securities. Those are digital assets acquired on or after January 1, 2026 and held continuously at the same broker. Noncovered assets require only gross proceeds reporting. The cost-basis tracking requirement is therefore already active for the covered category, making its boundary immediately relevant to brokers and their clients.
The plan’s projects extend beyond that filing obligation. They cover how transactions are taxed, digital assets held by §301.7701-4(c) investment trusts, and §6045 reporting for certain foreign persons in connection with CARF. They also cover how to furnish payee statements electronically, information reporting under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and final regulations that remove certain broker gross-proceeds reporting regulations. Those workstreams should not be confused with permission to postpone current reporting.
CARF has a longer horizon. The OECD’s September 2026 updated commitment list and the 2026–2027 Priority Guidance Plan place the United States’ commitment at 2029 reporting. That later timetable provides context for the international reporting project. It does not displace the immediate Form 1099-DA and cost-basis obligations.
SECURE 2.0 finalization and the retirement rules still awaiting completion
The eight SECURE 2.0 projects largely concern finalization of work already in progress. Proposed regulations for automatic enrollment under §414A were published January 14, 2025, and finalization is on the plan. That establishes the direction of regulatory work without establishing when final rules will arrive. For plan sponsors, the gap between proposed and final regulations remains an administration issue.
Implementation guidance is still needed for the savers match, qualified student loan matching contributions, long-term part-time employee rules, and pension-linked emergency savings accounts. Some provisions have published proposals, while work on how to put others into practice is less far along. Inclusion in the plan does not itself settle either category. Practitioners who advise sponsors should track how far along the guidance for each provision is, since the retirement block has no single release pending.
What the plan’s silences tell practitioners about where not to wait for guidance
Where Treasury has deprioritized an area, practitioners should work from existing law and prior guidance rather than hold advice in reserve for anticipated regulations. This triage decision recognizes that an unresolved question can remain important to a client while attracting little regulatory attention during this plan year.
Estate and gift guidance makes that distinction concrete. The plan has a single estate tax item on the §2010 exemption, while several estate and gift projects from prior years were dropped entirely. Donor-advised funds show a similar narrowing. Only the §4966 final regulations item carries over, with three of the four donor-advised fund-related guidance projects from the 2024–2025 plan removed. It is still unclear whether TE/GE will keep working on those dropped projects.
These omissions are not permanent bars to future guidance. The plan’s introduction expressly allows additions during the year, especially deregulatory ones. Nevertheless, that flexibility is not a reason to assume an omitted project will return in time to inform current advice. The appropriate baseline is the law and guidance available, subject to any actual change in the agenda.
How to monitor progress without tracking all 105 projects equally
A tiered approach turns the plan’s structure into a workable monitoring system. The first tier covers proposed or final regulations most directly connected to current positions, including OBBBA guidance on tips, overtime, §174A, GILTI/NCTI, and §2010. It also includes SECURE 2.0 work under §414A and §414(v), together with the CAMT partnership elections under Notice 2025-28. These projects merit close attention because interpretive work and client decisions are already underway.
The second tier tracks notices that say what regulators plan to do. It includes digital asset broker reporting, more deregulatory additions, and the §501(c)(3) projects linked to litigation. Practitioners must track pending guidance in this tier while also meeting the digital asset obligations already in force. The third tier tracks partnership basis-shifting removal and Trump Accounts regulations, where the next rulemaking step is still pending after plans were announced.
IRS.gov and updates to the plan are the most direct way to spot changes in the agenda. Systems built to match new guidance to a client roster can cut the time spent sorting through changes across OBBBA’s many provisions. Their value is to direct attention to relevant changes, leaving practitioners to do the interpretive work.
