A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

The “one big beautiful bill” came with many tax benefits for top earners, despite limiting how much they can deduct. However, lawyers for the wealthy said they have discovered a surprise buried in the footnotes of a tax law guide released last week by Congress’ policy staff that could amount to double taxation.

The deduction cap is imposed on trusts and estates, the lawyers said, which was unexpected. Even if a trust gave all its income to its beneficiaries, it would have to pay taxes on a portion of that income, according to the lawyers’ interpretation of the document.

While the consequences are steeper for trusts and estates of the ultra-wealthy, trusts with as little as $16,000 in income would also be subject to additional taxes, the lawyers said.

“There is potentially an element of double taxation,” said Dan Griffith, director of wealth strategy at Huntington Bank. “This is something that is going to affect somebody with a $400,000 special-needs trust. It’s not just going to be something that $100 million dynasty trusts suffer with.”

Griffith said he is especially concerned about trusts that are obligated to distribute all their income. Trusts will either have to sell assets to pay the taxes, sacrificing future investment returns, or reduce their distributions to beneficiaries, he said.

This provision creates a “mathematical nightmare” for tax lawyers and financial advisors, according to Justin Miller, national director of wealth planning at Evercore Wealth Management. Miller gave the example of a wealthy couple wishing to leave their estate to charity.

“If I have to pay income taxes, that means I’m giving less money to charity because I’m giving money to the IRS. That means I now have to adjust my deduction even more because less money is going to charity,” he said. “Did Congress really intend to create an algebraic formula?”

Historically, trusts and estates have been able to deduct income given to beneficiaries, which is then taxed on the individual level. This distribution deduction is designed to make sure income is only taxed once.

However, the new deduction limitation on top-earning individuals now applies to trusts and estates, according to a footnote in the Joint Committee on Taxation’s recent tax explainer, better known as the Bluebook. The JCT is nonpartisan and serves to explain legislation.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s limit on itemized deductions means that taxpayers in the top bracket only get a deduction benefit of 35 cents for every dollar, rather than 37 cents. It applies to charitable deductions, and experts say it has already influenced how top earners give.

While the Bluebook is an interpretation of the OBBBA rather than law in and of itself, this provision is causing concern in the financial advisory community, according to lawyer Robert Keebler. For instance, he frequently sets up trusts for clients on their second marriages that will provide their surviving spouse with income but leave the remainder for children from the first marriage. 

Consider a trust that distributes all $370,000 of its net income to a widow, he said. Applying the deduction limit to trusts means that the trust can only deduct $350,000 from its distributable net income and $20,000 would be subject to taxes, even though the widow is taxed on the entire $370,000, according to Keebler. To pay the tax, the trust either has to dip into its corpus, reducing the children’s future benefit, or get permission to give less to the spouse, which can require going to court.

This provision applies to this tax year, according to Keebler.

The double taxation issue could be resolved by an amendment by Congress, or, more likely, guidance from the Department of the Treasury. Keebler is planning with the anticipation that it will stand.

“We hope for the best but plan for the worst,” he said.

The Department of the Treasury did not answer CNBC’s questions by press time.

Miller said it is “reasonable to hope” that the Treasury Department will issue guidance by the end of this year. However, the devil will be in the details for which deductions the department decides to limit, he said.

For instance, the department might allow trusts to take unlimited deductions on distributing income to beneficiaries such as family members, which would resolve the biggest concern for financial advisors, Miller said. The footnote in the Bluebook mentions this deduction.

But Miller noted that the Bluebook’s footnote does not mention charitable deductions for trusts and estates. He told CNBC that he thought the omission was intentional and that it is possible the Treasury will keep the deduction limit on charitable giving for trusts and estates.

A person familiar with the JCT’s procedures told CNBC that staff had interpreted from the OBBBA that the charitable deduction would be treated differently from other deductions. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

With six months until the end of the year, what advisors need most is clarity, Miller said.

“We just need to know the rules,” he added. “At the end of the day, advisors just want to do the correct thing. Right now, we don’t know what that is.”

As athletes and millions of fans gear up for the FIFA World Cup starting next week, global health officials are preparing for a high-stakes challenge of their own: protecting against infectious diseases.

For the first time, the tournament will span 16 host cities across three countries — the United States, Canada and Mexico — and feature 48 teams, making it the largest World Cup in history. The event also comes amid an Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda that the World Health Organization has designated a “public health emergency of international concern.” 

Despite those worries, the risk of widespread Ebola transmission during the tournament is low, infectious disease experts told CNBC. Public health departments, hospitals and other partners are also well equipped to respond to a range of potential threats — even after sweeping cuts to critical federal agencies and the U.S. exiting from the WHO under the Trump administration.

“Ebola and hantavirus, I worry about a lot less,” Dr. Shruti Gohil, the associate medical director for University of California, Irvine Health Epidemiology and Infection Prevention, said in an interview. “The overall likelihood of risk is not nonzero, but it’s low, very low, because it is not easy to transmit person to person.” 

Instead, experts say more contagious threats could pose greater challenges during the tournament and other large events this summer, particularly because international visitors could move through multiple venues and cities in a matter of days. 

Those threats include measles — one of the world’s most contagious diseases — as well as respiratory viruses such as Covid-19 and influenza. The concern comes after the U.S. recorded its highest number of measles cases in decades last year, driven in part by growing vaccine hesitancy and declining immunization rates.

Some experts also pointed to arboviruses spread by infected insects, such as dengue, while others highlighted heat-related and foodborne illnesses as notable risks beyond infectious diseases.

Preparing for the World Cup has involved scaling up existing programs, such as wastewater monitoring, and adding new tools to track infectious disease threats. Those systems will face their first major test when the tournament kicks off on June 11, but public health officials say they are ready to take on the challenge. 

“Public health prides itself in being the invisible shield, but I don’t want that to get lost in the actual Herculean effort it takes to have an operational invisible shield, so that people can enjoy events like the World Cup and feel safe and secure in their public health when they’re here,” said Dr. Theresa Tran, director for the Houston Health Department.

“That’s a system that I’m extraordinarily proud about … we are absolutely working so hard every single day in preparation for things like this,” said Tran, who is overseeing the response in a host city. 

During those screenings, CDC staff will survey individuals about their travel history and symptoms, check their temperatures and collect contact information for follow-ups by state and local public authorities if needed, the agency’s website says. Individuals are also monitored for Ebola’s full incubation period of 21 days, not only the day they arrive in the U.S., UCI’s Gohil said. 

The screening protocol extends beyond the airport. Local health departments are notified when travelers from affected regions arrive in their jurisdictions, enabling officials to monitor them for signs of illness, said Dr. Marvia Jones, director of the health department for Kansas City, a host city. 

In Dallas County, Texas, where World Cup games will also be played, the health department has coordinated with emergency responders and local hospitals to ensure any traveler who develops Ebola symptoms can be safely transported and treated, county health Director Dr. Phil Huang told CNBC. The plans include identifying which facilities would receive patients, preparing those places for infection-control protocols and arranging specialized transportation if needed.

Huang said the county also held a session to educate local healthcare providers on the lessons learned from Dallas’ 2014 Ebola case, including the importance of obtaining travel histories, recognizing symptoms and following established procedures for patient transport, isolation, contact tracing and the use of personal protective equipment.

Ebola “is definitely top of mind as a heavy thing with our history,” Huang said. 

In a statement to CNBC, FIFA said it is aware and monitoring the Ebola outbreak and continues to work with all three host countries’ governments to “ensure a safe and secure tournament.” FIFA is also informing ticket holders residing in Congo, South Sudan and Uganda of travel considerations ahead of the event. 

The U.S. had more measles cases in 2025 than in any other year since 1991, with more than 2,100 confirmed cases. Cases were reported in 45 jurisdictions in 2025, and there were 48 outbreaks, compared with 16 the previous year, according to the CDC.

The U.S. eliminated measles in 2000, but cases have risen as misinformation spreads and vaccination rates decline. About 93% of confirmed measles cases last year were among people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown, CDC data shows. 

Besides measles, Houston’s Tran said she’s concerned about other diseases at risk of higher spread as vaccination rates drop in the U.S., such as Covid and the flu. 

“The transmissibility being airborne makes them so much more likely to cause a public health threat than Ebola,” she said.

But Houston, Tran said, has professional epidemiologists who are monitoring and contract-tracing individuals anytime there is a vaccine-preventable disease that could become an outbreak. 

Norovirus, food-borne and heat-related illnesses as well as sexually transmitted infectious could also pose challenges during the tournament, some public health officials told CNBC. 

But public health departments have been working to ensure that food vendors at the World Cup and related gatherings have the proper permits to sell to the public, said Dr. Monika Roy, the deputy health officer and infectious disease and response branch director for Santa Clara County, California. The county outside of San Francisco will also host matches.

In addition to keeping an eye on permitting, Houston has teams of registered sanitarians ready to investigate any foodborne illnesses, and it has prepared public health campaigns related to heat-related illness and prevention given the high humidity in the city. 

That’s one reason why Katz in May launched the Health Security Operations Center, a hub for monitoring potential infectious disease threats that will distribute daily situation reports starting Thursday to hundreds of state and local health officials, federal agencies, tournament organizers and hospital emergency managers, among others. It’s part of the National Center for Health Security and Resilience, a joint effort between Georgetown University and MedStar Health. 

Among the center’s efforts is participating in daily stand-up calls hosted by the Pan American Health Organization, a ​regional office of the WHO, and sharing that information directly with local, state and federal jurisdictions, Katz said. PAHO is coordinating data between Mexico and Canada as well, she noted.

At the local level, health departments are ramping up their surveillance efforts. 

Many World Cup host cities and counties are leaning on wastewater surveillance, a public health tool that gained prominence during the Covid pandemic. The approach enables officials to detect signs of disease spreading in a community through sewage samples, often before outbreaks are identified through traditional testing.

For example, Dallas is increasing its wastewater sample sites to cover nearly the entire county, Huang said. The county is also implementing metagenomic testing, which is broadly extracting and sequencing sewage samples to identify every bacteria, virus and fungus rather than a specific one, he added. 

Huang said Dallas is also enhancing its mosquito surveillance by monitoring not only for West Nile virus, which is endemic in the region, but also diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika. 

Meanwhile, Philadelphia is deploying a new mobile lab that can test samples on site, speeding up the detection of potential health threats and reducing the need to send specimens to specialized labs elsewhere in the state or country, Garrow said. He noted that the lab, which launched in June, aims to boost testing capacity and reach areas less centrally located.

Dr. Margaret Aldrich, a pediatric epidemiologist at NYU Langone, said she believes in the U.S. “we’re actually better prepared, honestly, than we ever have been for high-consequence infectious diseases.”

“There’s a very robust system in the United States,” Aldrich said. “The departments of health are really continuing to maintain that hard work and ensuring that, as we always say, if we’re doing our job, you don’t see it.”