OBBBA 2026: Section 179 Jumps to $2.56M and Bonus Depreciation Is Back to 100% — Track Every Purchase

If you’ve been putting off buying equipment for your business, 2026 just handed you one of the most generous tax environments in years. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), small businesses can now expense far more, far faster — but there’s a catch that has nothing to do with the tax code and everything to do with your bookkeeping: you can only claim what you’ve documented.

Here’s what changed, and why your records just became the gatekeeper to some very large deductions.

What OBBBA Actually Did for Small Business Write-Offs

Three changes stand out for 2026:

Section 179 expensing exploded. The maximum deduction rose to $2.56 million for 2026, with the phase-out threshold starting at $4.09 million of property placed in service. Section 179 lets you deduct the full cost of qualifying equipment and off-the-shelf software in the year you buy it, instead of spreading it over years of depreciation.

Bonus depreciation is permanently back to 100%. OBBBA restored full 100% bonus depreciation for qualifying property placed in service after January 19, 2025, and made it permanent. For many assets, that means a complete write-off in year one.

The QBI deduction got bigger and permanent. The Qualified Business Income deduction is now permanent, and the rate rose to 23% for tax years beginning after December 31, 2025 — up from 20%. There’s even a new minimum $400 deduction for taxpayers with at least $1,000 of active qualified business income. Your 2026 return is the first to use the higher rate.

Taken together, these changes reward businesses that invest in themselves — and reward the ones that keep clean records enough to prove it.

The Catch Nobody Mentions: Documentation

A deduction you can’t substantiate is a deduction you don’t really have. To claim Section 179 or bonus depreciation, you need records that show:

• What you bought — a description of the asset
• What it cost — the purchase amount
• When it was placed in service — the date it started being used for the business, which is what actually triggers the deduction
• How it’s categorized — equipment, computers, machinery, and so on

Miss any of this and you either lose the write-off or can’t defend it if the IRS asks. And these aren’t small deductions — a single equipment purchase can shift your entire tax bill. The businesses that capture these savings are simply the ones that logged the purchase when it happened.

Don’t Forget the Everyday Deductions Either

While the headline is big-ticket depreciation, the same recordkeeping discipline captures the smaller deductions that add up. Business mileage, for instance, is deductible at the 2026 IRS standard rate of 72.5 cents per mile — but only if you keep contemporaneous records of miles, dates, destinations, and business purpose. Software subscriptions, supplies, and processing fees all work the same way: documented equals deductible.

Turn Your Purchases Into Claimable Deductions

The bridge between “OBBBA gave me huge write-offs” and “I actually claimed them” is a bookkeeping system that records every purchase with its date, cost, and category the moment it happens.

Our Small Business Bookkeeping Spreadsheet makes that automatic. Its expense tracker logs every business purchase with a date, amount, vendor, and IRS Schedule C category, so equipment and asset buys are captured with exactly the detail these deductions require. The tax summary tab then organizes everything by Schedule C line item, giving you — or your accountant — a clean, substantiated record at filing time. Across nine tabs and 836+ auto-calculating formulas, it works in Excel and Google Sheets, so nothing you buy in this unusually generous tax year slips through undocumented.

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Small Business Bookkeeping Spreadsheet Template — Record every equipment and business purchase with the date, cost, and category that Section 179 and bonus depreciation deductions require. Includes expense and income trackers, 25 IRS Schedule C categories, a tax summary tab, invoice aging, and cash flow across 9 tabs with 836+ auto-calculating formulas. Works in Excel and Google Sheets. $17.99 (currently $10.79 with the LAUNCH40 sale). Instant digital download.