The House of Representatives has passed H.R. 636, “America’s Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015.” This legislation would permanently reinstate the 2014 small business expensing limitation of $500,000. The limitation was decreased to $25,000 beginning on 2015. TechAmerica has long called for the higher $500,000 limitation to be permanently extended.
Section 179 expensing allows small businesses to deduct the cost of certain asset purchases, as opposed to depreciating acquisition costs over a period of years. This is an incredibly valuable incentive, enabling small businesses to invest in technologies that improve both productivity and the quality of goods and services.
In past years, this section 179 provision has been packaged along with a group of 50-plus tax extenders, all of which had been periodically extended for 1-2 years periods, many times retroactively. Because of the repeated temporary extensions, this group of tax breaks has traditionally been referred to as the “tax extenders.”
The path forward for this legislation is unclear, but passage of this stand-alone provision by the Senate is highly unlikely.
