“I’m not a tax advisor or accountant or anything of the sort but aren’t many of these suggestions directed at maximizing this year’s deductions and pushing income into next year when possible. How is this a positive in the face of anticipated tax rate increases next year?”
It all depends on your personal situation. If you’re facing a significant loss of income next year due to say a pending layoff or retirement, it might well make sense to push income into the future to take advantage of lower marginal tax rates.
Exactly. You would defer income if the rates were going to be lower. But if they aren't, conventional wisdom was to try to bring income into the current, presumably lower year. (Now if the future diminishment in income is significant enough that deferred income would still not put you into a taxable income situation or a bracket equal to or higher than the current year, I can see that.)