I was really pleased to hear that the President mentioned 100% depreciation for next year, as he presented the tax proposal last week. That may jumpstart a bit of business investment, especially if people are sitting on cash and needed an incentive to spend it.
It would seem that the 100% bonus depreciation would be retroactive to september 9th 2010, if passed.
Allow businesses to expense 100% qualified property placed in service after September 8, 2010 and before January 1, 2012. Allows business to expense 50% of the cost of qualified property placed in service for one year (2012).
I talked to my tax man today. He is a CPA and formerly worked for Arthrur Anderson and Ernst and Young. I told him I had read thru sec. 179 so I had a basic feel of what it means. He said it is quite specific in naming 3 distinct building uses eligible for 100% write off in year 1. They are: buildings for housing livestock, buildings for horticulture (greenhouses), and grain bins. Machinery storage buildings are 20 year depreciation. We did discuss why tiling is 100% depreciable when it is a long term investment. Leasing is eligible if done with all the t's crossed and i's dotted.
I may be wrong, but the types of buildings eligible for the fast writeoff appear to be single-use ones to me. You cannot do much with any of them but exactly what you build them to do.
A machine shed could conceivably have many different functions.
Does anyone know if that is the rationale for the different treatment or not?
