Top Takeaways from Innovate 2026: If You Missed the Conference, Don’t Miss the Learning

What are the top tax and income strategies for 2026? How will OBBBA, the Midterm Elections, and our changing economy impact your clients in the year ahead? What marketing approaches will drive appointments in today’s environment?

This week, more than 100 top advisors gathered in Louisville to sharpen their tax strategies, refine their marketing messages, and prepare for what’s ahead in 2026.

If you missed Stonewood’s Innovate Summit, you don’t have to miss the learning.

Below are our top takeaways from the conference:

2026 Legislative Outlook

Stonewood CEO Becky Swansburg kicked off the conference with a bold challenge:

As financial advisors, it’s not our job to PREDICT the future for our clients.

It’s our job to PROTECT our clients from futures we CAN’T PREDICT.

How do we go about doing that? Becky’s keynote highlighted:

→ Taxes Today & Taxes Tomorrow

Retirement tax planning is all about protecting clients from the risk of rising taxes in the future. That means the tax environment that matters most to our clients is not the tax environment of today, but the tax environment of the next 10, 20 or 30 years.

However, the only time we can plan for future tax environments IS today.

We have a unique (perhaps once in a generation) opportunity in 2026: Today’s tax rates are low thanks to OBBBA. And we know higher tax rates are likely coming, thanks to government spending needs and the size of our debt. We have an opportunity to PLAN in the lower-tax environment of today to PROTECT against the higher-tax environment of the future.

→ It’s About More Than the Brackets

Many savers measure their tax burden by their tax bracket. But brackets are only one way the government can generate more revenue from U.S. savers.

Other common approaches we’ll need to watch for our clients? Changing the amount of income applicable to each bracket. Reducing or eliminating deductions so more of your income is subject to taxation. New or expanded income-based fees, like IRMAA. Changes to how or when assets are taxed, as we saw with inherited IRAs in the SECURE Act.

As we evaluate Roth and other tax-free conversions for our clients, we need to evaluate how all these tax changes could impact their retirement income and legacy plans – today and into the future.

→ It’s Not Just Republican vs. Democrat

As we head toward the Midterm Elections in November, it’s easy to think the election outcome is what matters most to our clients and their retirement assets. But unless our clients only plan to be retired for the next four years, near-term elections are not the primary driver of tax risk. After all, retirement is about the decades to come – potentially 10 to 15 election cycles.

The biggest risk when it comes to our clients’ taxes in retirement is CHANGE. Every two years in America, we have elections. And that means every two years we have new government. Whatever is done today can be undone in the future - and vice versa. When helping our clients minimize taxes in retirement, the risk we’re mitigating is change – for decades to come.

Becky’s parting advice? To borrow a quote from Judge Learned Hand: “There are two systems of taxation in this country. One for the informed, and one for the uninformed.”

2026 is the year to help our clients plan and prepare for the risk of rising taxes – so they can enter retirement under the system of taxation for the informed.

The Right Way to Roth in 2026

Next, COO Neil Wilding gave a master class on Roth Conversions. His key takeaways included:

• In 2026, advisors must expand risk mitigation strategies to include tax and legislative risk. Retirement approaches that don’t address tax risk are simply incomplete in today’s legislative environment.
• The key decision-driving factor in Roth conversions? Allowing clients to compare the cost of deferral to the cost of conversion in clear, simple numbers.
• Today’s assumptions may not be tomorrow’s truth. Advisors can model in variance and show clients a range of future scenarios. Variance = risk, particularly when it comes to expenses like taxes and IRMAA.

Check out Stonewood’s Roth Done Right software to access a streamlined way to evaluate all these considerations for your clients - in one simple report.

Driving Alpha in a New Way

VP of Member Success Alec Stout detailed how to move from concept to closed business - setting the right assumptions and streamlining client conversations.

One highlight? Many savers have never evaluated the growth needed from their brokerage account to match the guaranteed income they could access through an annuity. Alec showed the group why many savers might find they need double-digit annual growth in their brokerage account - throughout their lifetime! - to match today’s annuity guarantees.

If you’re looking for a streamlined way to analyze this need for your client, check out Stonewood’s Annuity Alpha software.

Insights from our Partners

From best practices in LinkedIn marketing to leveraging books as a lead gen tool, our partners brought powerful insights throughout the conference. Thank you to AUM Navigator, Trained Advisor, Leading Response, Paperback Expert, RA Marketing, Silloet, Integrated Trust Systems, and NAIFA for helping make Innovate Conference 2026 such a success.

Don’t Miss Out!

Stonewood will be hosting our annual Virtual Innovate Conference this June. Watch this space for complete details. Want to get on the pre-register list? Email Support@StonewoodFinancial.com.