Democrats Won Congress. Is Your Bonus Depreciation Gone?

David Wiener: If you own rental or commercial property, there's a good chance you've asked some version of this question since Tuesday night. Democrats won Congress. Is my bonus depreciation gone? The answer's no. Not on your 2026 return, and not on anything you buy next year under the law as it's written today. But there's a second half to that answer, and almost nobody's talking about it. The deadlines that'll actually move your tax bill over the next few years were written into the law before a single vote was counted on Tuesday. One of them is less than two months away. One of them already passed. One of them runs out at the end of 2028, and none of them care who won. That's today's episode. Welcome to the Tax Strategy Playbook. I'm David Wiener, and if we've met her at a talk or on a call, you probably know me as Mr. Cashflow. Today's a solo show and it's a news episode, so we're doing this one fast while the question's still hot. And before we go any further, if you've been following along, this isn't the episode I promised you. Part three of our R&D series was supposed to be today. I've moved it back one week because this topic is too timely to sit on. Every week that goes by, more of you make decisions based on headlines, and I'd rather you had this first. The R&D series picks right back up next Tuesday with part three. Okay, so let's start with the facts because headlines have been loud since Tuesday. And as I record this. The networks are projecting that Democrats will lose both the House and the Senate when the new Congress is sworn in. I think that's pretty certain. That's January 3, 2027. A few races are still being counted, so the exact margins aren't settled. The control question is settled. Now here's the civics part, and it matters more for your taxes than any headline you'll read this month. A tax bill has to start in the House. That's in the Constitution. Then it has to pass the Senate. Then it goes to the president. If the president signs it, it's law. If the president vetoes it, Congress can override that veto, but only with two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate. So the new Congress can write any tax bill it wants. Getting it signed into law is a completely different matter, and that's the part that touches your tax return. There's one practical change you will see in January, though. Tax bills go through two committees, Ways and Means in the House and Finance in the Senate. The majority party picks who runs those committees, and the people running them decide which tax ideas get hearings. So, starting in January, you're going to hear a lot more about the proposals on the new majorities list. More hearings, more headlines, more bills introduced. Entirely normal, and it's exactly why you need a way to sort what you're hearing. The Tax Foundation, which is a tax policy think tank in Washington, published a breakdown of all this the day after the election. Their phrase was that Democrats, quote, will have limited maneuvering room in 2027, given Republican control of the White House, unquote. They also made the point that the proposals Democrats put forward in 2027 will shape tax policy down the road, even the ones that don't pass. I think both of those are probably right, and they're the frame for this whole episode. So I'm going to sort everything we talk about today into three buckets. Bucket one is law. It's in the Internal Revenue Code today and it applies to your return. Bucket two is a proposal. Somebody introduced it or talked about it, and it doesn't apply to anybody yet. Bucket three is anything that would need a signature to move from bucket two to bucket one. When somebody forwards you an article, a post, or a video about what's coming for your taxes. Put it in one of those three buckets before you react to it. Most of what you'll see over the next two years is gonna be bucket two. Your return actually lives in bucket one. And there's one more thing that's true no matter who controls Congress. When a tax law does change, the effective date doesn't always start the day the president signs it. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a perfect example. It was signed on July 4th of 2025 and the bonus depreciation change reached back to property acquired after January 19th of 2025. That's five and a half months earlier. So when you hear a proposal, it's fair to ask what date it would start, and not only whether or not it'll pass. So that's the machinery behind it. Let's look at what's actually on the table. I'm going to walk through this list the way I want it walked through for me. What each idea is. Who it would touch and which bucket it's in. Every one of those that I'm going to go over with you is in bucket two. None of it's law yet. I'm working from that same Tax Foundation piece, and I'll name it when I'm quoting it. It's a good map of where the debate is heading. It also comes with the Tax Foundation's own view that most of these tax increases carry real economic costs. That's their position, and supporters of these ideas see it differently. They argue that the revenue is needed and that the burden should fall more on high earners and large companies. You don't need my vote on that and you won't get it. What you need is to know which ones could touch you. Start with corporations. The corporate tax rate is 21% right now. According to the Tax Foundation, the one top priority for Democrats is raising it. The open questions are how high? And whether it would be graduated, meaning different rates at different income levels. If your business is a C corporation, that's the one you want to watch. If you own rentals in an LLC or run an S corporation or a partnership, the corporate rate doesn't hit you directly because those profits flow through to your personal return. Next, high earners. The Tax Foundation points to income surtaxes on millionaires that Democrats in both chambers have proposed. Including one from Senator Chris Van Halen of Maryland that would add a surtax of up to 12% on income over a million dollars. Then capital gains. There are proposals to raise capital gains rates, and the Tax Foundation also lists proposals to end something called the step up in basis, along with taxing unrealized gains every year for the very wealthiest households. Step up in basis is a big deal for real estate investors, and we're going to come back to it near the end. Because it's the one item on this list that touches a strategy a lot of you are counting on for your family. There's also an annual wealth tax on billionaires. If that one applies to you, I appreciate you listening. On the other side of the ledger, there are tax cuts and credits on the list too. Expanding the child tax credit, expanding the earned income tax credit, bringing back the bigger health insurance premiums credit that expired at the end of 2025. If you're self-employed and you buy your own health coverage, that last one's the one worth keeping your eye on. And then there are two items that sit right in my lane, and they're the reason this episode exists. The first one, the Tax Foundation notes that this year saw proposals, and I'm quoting, quote, to disallow data center bonus depreciation conditionally or in its entirety, unquote. The second one The provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that lets manufacturers immediately deduct the full cost of new factory buildings is scheduled to expire. That Tax Foundation read is that it isn't clear how Democrats would handle that. I'll take both of those apart in a minute. But first let's take a quick pause. I had a listener tell me something this week that just really stuck with me. They said the show is great information, which I really appreciate, but listening to it is like drinking from a fire hose. They wished they could take notes while they listened. So I asked whether they'd picked up the free playbook notes yet, the ones you get through the new newsletter membership site, and they said, yeah, I've been meaning to do that. Don't be the one who's meaning to. The notes are already written for you, so you can listen and let somebody else do the writing. For this episode, that includes the three buckets on one page, with every item we cover today already sorted into the right one. Subscribe to the newsletter at TaxstrategyPlaybook.com slash newsletter. It's free and it gives you my access to my 2026-2027 tax planning guide and the playbook notes for each episode at no charge. Don't wait around. Subscribe today. Okay, your depreciation. Here's where bonus depreciation stands in the morning after the election. Exactly where it stood the morning before the election. Quick refresher if you're new. Bonus depreciation lets you deduct the cost of qualifying property in the first year instead of spreading it out over years. It reaches property with a recovery period of 20 years or less. That means it doesn't touch the building itself, which is 27.5 years for residential rentals and 39 years for commercial and short-term rentals. It reaches the pieces inside and around the building that a cost segregation study. moves into five, seven, or fifteen year categories. The carpet, the cabinets, certain electrical, the parking lot, the fencing, the landscaping, plenty of it. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, bonus depreciation is 100% for property acquired after January 19th of 2025 and placed in service after that date. Both dates. And unlike the old version of this rule, this one doesn't have a phase-down schedule or an end date written into it. That's what people mean when they say it's permanent. Now, permanent in tax law means something specific. It means there's no expiration date in the statute. It doesn't mean Congress can't change it. Any Congress can change the part of the tax code at any time with a signature. So in tax law, permanent means it stays until a new law changes it. And that brings us to the data center proposals because they show you. How a change like that would meet most likely start. Look at what those proposals go after. One kind of asset. Everything else is left alone. That's how tax changes usually come, one category at a time, aimed at whatever's in the news. Data centers are in the news because how much money's going into them and how much electricity they use. A duplex in Gainesville isn't the news. A strip center isn't. A self-storage facility isn't. So the Could the rules for rental and commercial property change someday? Sure, any rule can, and probably will at some point. Is there anything in bucket the bucket two list now aimed at the property most of you own? Not in anything I've read. And even the data center idea would need a signature to become law. But there's a bonus depreciation deadline coming up that has nothing to do with Tuesday, and I want to make sure nobody listening gets caught by it. Remember, the 100% rule needs Both dates after January 19th of 2025. So what if you signed a binding contract before that date, say in the fall of 2024, on a property that still hasn't been placed in service? A building still under construction, a major renovation that isn't done, a project that broke ground in 2024 and opens next year. That property is still on the old phase-down schedule from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Under that schedule, Property placed in service in 2026 only gets 20% bonus depreciation. Property placed in service in 2027 gets zero. There's a narrow exception for certain long production period property that gets one extra year on the schedule. Your tax professional will know if that's you. Probably isn't you. Zero. Zero for 2027, and the election had nothing to do with it. Congress wrote that schedule in 2017. Let me put a number on that, and this is an illustration, not a particular client. Let's say you signed a contract in 2024 on a commercial building that's being finished out now, and a cost segregation study finds $500,000 of components in the five, seven, and fifteen year categories. Placed in service in December of 2026, that's 20% bonus on those components. So $100,000 of bonus depreciation in the first year on top of regular depreciation. Placed in service in January of 2027, the bonus is zero. Same building, it's the same study, only one month apart. The components still get their shorter lives either way. So a cost segregation study still works. The deduction isn't lost, it's just spread out over years instead of landing up front. So if you've got a pre-2025 contract on anything that's close to being ready for use, the date it's placed in service. This year versus next year matters. For rental property placed in service means ready and available to rent, which we covered in detail back in episode 33. For a business, it means ready and available for its intended use. Talk to your tax professional about where that date lands and do it before December 31st, not after. That's the kind of deadline It's quiet, it's already law, and it's worth more to some of you than everything in the headlines all combined. Here's a favor for you, and it isn't for me. Think of one person you know who's been reading the election coverage and wondering what it means for the property they own. Maybe you texted each other about it. Send them this episode. It'll save them a week of worrying about bucket two. Now, let's talk about the clock that really does have a date on it. This one's for the business owners, and in particular for anybody who manufactures, produces, or refines a physical product. If that's not you, stick around anyway because you probably know somebody it is, and this one can be worth a lot. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created a brand new deduction in section 168N of the tax code. It's called qualified production property. In plain English, it lets a manufacturer deduct 100% of the cost of production part of the new factory building in the first year. Let that land for a second. We just spent a whole section on how bonus depreciation never touches the building itself. 39 years every time. but this is the exception. For the first time, the structure itself, the walls and the roof over the production floor, can be written off in year one. The rules are tight though, and you need to know them before you count on it. The IRS put out interim guidance on this earlier this year. Notice 2026-16. Here's what it takes. First, The dates. Construction has to begin after January 19th of 2025 and before January 1st of 2029. And the building has to be placed in service after July 4th of 2025 and before January 1st of 2031. Second, it has to be used for manufacturing, production, or refining of tangible products. The IRS describes manufacturing as materially changing the form or function of a tangible personal property. Third, and this is where it gets real, only the production portion counts. The parts of the building used for offices, administrative services, lodging, parking, sales, research, software development, or engineering are completely excluded. So if your new plant has a production floor, a front office, a break room, A showroom, an engineering wing, you don't get 100% of the building. You get 100% of the part that's actually making product. Which means somebody has to measure the building and split it square footage by use, shared spaces allocated, documented well enough to hold up if the IRS asks. That's an engineering job, and it's work that CSSI does. It sits right alongside a cost segregation study, which still matters. Because the pieces of that building that aren't production property can still be broken out into shorter lives the regular way. Here's what that split can mean. And again, this is an illustration I built just to show the mechanics. Say a manufacturer builds a $10 million plant, leaving the land out, and a measured allocation shows 70% of it as production space. That's $7 million of qualified production property. With the election, the full $7 million is deductible the very first year. Without it, that same $7 million sits on a 39-year schedule. Which works out to roughly $180,000 a year, $7 million in year one, or about $180,000 a year for 39 years. That's the size of the decision. And it's why the allocation has to be done absolutely correctly. One more detail that people miss. It doesn't have to be a brand new building in every case. The guidance allows a used building to qualify under certain conditions. including that nobody used it for production between January 1st of 2021 and May the 12th of 2025 and that you didn't use it yourself before you bought it. So if you're buying an empty warehouse to convert it into a plant, that's worth a closer look too. Fourth, it generally has to be your production. The guidance says a landlord can't count a tenant's manufacturing as its own use. There are narrow exceptions for related entities But if you're an investor who owns a building and leases it to an unrelated manufacturer, don't assume this applies to you. Fifth, it's an election. You make it on your original return for the year the building is placed in service, filed by the due date, including extensions. Miss it on that return, and you've generally missed it. And once it's made, undoing it takes a private letter ruling and the IRS's written consent. Which the notice says comes only in extraordinary circumstances. Treat that as permanent. Sixth, there's a tenure hook. If the building stops being used for production within 10 years of being placed in service, the IRS takes back part of that benefit through recapture taxed as ordinary income. Tuesday's connection to all of this is short. The Tax Foundation lists this deduction among the provisions that are going to expire, and it says it's not clear how Democrats would approach it. That's the whole political picture. To extend it, you'd need a new bill and you'd need a signature. Here's what I'd tell a business owner sitting across the table from me. Don't plan your building around a hope that the deadline gets extended. Plan it around the deadline that's written down. If you've been thinking about building or expanding a production facility, the date that matters is when construction begins, and the window for that closes at the end of 2028. That sounds like a long way off. For a project that needs land, financing permits, and a contractor, it isn't. So that's the clock with the date on it. Now, two things the election did not touch at all. Let's do 179D first because I know some of you are wondering whether the new Congress brings it back. Quick background 179D is the deduction for energy efficient commercial buildings. And designers of buildings owned by governments, tribes, and nonprofits can claim it too. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act terminated it for property where construction begins after June 30th, 2026. The IRS confirms that in the instructions in Form 7205, the form you use to claim it, if you've never run into 179D, it rewards commercial buildings that use less energy because of three systems: the interior lighting, the heating, cooling, and ventilation, and hot water, and the building envelope. meaning the walls, roof, windows, insulation. It covers new construction and qualifying retrofits, and it's a deduction. So it works a lot like depreciation on your tax return. That date is behind us now. And nothing in the tax foundation's breakdown mentions bringing it back. Could a future bill revive it? Any future bill could do anything. But that would be bucket two. It would need a signature and I'm not going to tell you to plan around it. Here's what I'll tell you instead. The termination is based on when the construction began. If you own a commercial building where construction began on or before June 30th, 2026, and that includes buildings you've owned for years, 179D may still be on the table for you. That's exactly what we covered in episode 30, called 179D Is Not Dead. Claim it on a building you've owned for years. If you own commercial property and you've never had a 179D study, That ought to be your next listen. Now, R and D. Two pieces, neither one moved on Tuesday. The research credit itself has been a permanent part of the tax code for years. And the one big beautiful Bill Act created a section 174A, which lets businesses deduct their domestic research costs in the year they spend them again, instead of spreading them out over five years like they had to starting in twenty twenty two. That's law. It's on your twenty five. return and your 26 return. Neither one is on the tax foundation's list. If you develop or improve products, processes, or software, the R&D picture after Tuesday is exactly the same as it was before Tuesday. And if you've been assuming R&D is for companies with labs and people in white coats, it isn't. A machine shop figuring out how to hold tighter tolerances on a new part. A food company reformulating a recipe so it lasts longer on the shelf. A software company building a feature it isn't sure how to build yet. A contractor working on a new way to put up a structure. When a business is trying to solve a technical problem and it doesn't know the answer going in. That's the kind of work the credit was written for. Whether your particular project qualifies is a question for a proper study, but a lot more businesses are in that conversation than think they are. And if you're a startup that isn't making a profit yet, episode 32 showed how some young companies can use the credit against payroll taxes instead of income tax. And the R&D series picks up back next week with part three. Which brings me to the question I think a lot of sharp tax professionals are gonna ask this winter. Here's what I expect to hear from a lot of tax professionals over the next few months, and it's a fair one. If tax rates might go up later, wouldn't a deduction be worth more later? So why accelerate depreciation now? Why do a cost segregation study now? The logic is sound on its face. A deduction is worth whatever tax rate it saves you from. $100,000 of deduction in the 37% bracket saves you $37,000 of federal tax. The same deduction at a higher rate saves you more. So I don't want to blow it off, let's take it seriously and work our way through it the way I'd want a client to work through it. Start with where the rates are. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the current individual rate brackets permanent, with the top rate at 37%. For these rates to go up, Congress would have to pass a bill and the president would have to sign it, or Congress would need two thirds of both chambers to override a veto. It's the same three bucket test from the top of the episode. A rate increase you're hearing about today is bucket two. Now let's run a simple illustration. Just math. Say a cost segregation study on your property produces $200,000 of first-year depreciation, and you're in the top bracket, and you can actually use the deductions this year. At 37%, that's $74,000 of federal tax you don't pay for 2026. Now say you waited. And the rates went back to where the top rate was before 2018, which was 39.6%. The same $200,000 would be worth $79,200, about $5,200 more. But look at everything that has to happen for you to collect that $5,200. A bill has to pass, it has to get signed. You have to still be in the top bracket that year. You'd have to be able to use the deduction that year. And meanwhile, you've gone without $74,000 you could have had in your hands right now for however many years you were waiting. Put that $74,000 to work for a few years, paying down debt, funding the next down payment, sitting in the business, and the next extra $5,200 gets very, very difficult to justify. That's a trade a lot of people wouldn't take with their eyes open. If your business is a C corporation, run the same logic against the corporate rate. It's 21% today. There are proposals to raise it. A deduction in the C Corporation saves 21 cents on the dollar this year. And the question of whether to wait for a higher rate has the same answer. A proposal isn't a rate, and a dollar now has a head start on a dollar later. And here's the part that matters even more. Waiting doesn't have to be all or nothing. You keep options. The study is what tells you what's there. Having the study done doesn't force you to take every dollar this year. Your tax professional can elect out a bonus depreciation class by class for the year the property is placed in service. If you elect out, the components the study identified still get their shorter lives, five, seven, or fifteen years. Instead of the 27 and a half or 39. You just spread them out instead of taking them all at once. That's a real lever, and it's made on a timely file of return. So it's a decision for your tax professional to model for you, not something you decide from a headline. One warning, once it's made, you generally can't undo it without the IRS's consent, and consent is not easy to get. And if you never had a study at all on a property you already own, the depreciation you didn't take isn't gone. A look back study can catch up on the current return using a Form 3115. We walked through that exactly how that works in episode 27. One more thing, and it's the one most investors miss. For a lot of you, the tax rate isn't the thing that decides what a deduction is worth. Whether you can use it is. If real estate isn't your full time job, And you don't qualify as a real estate professional with the IRS, rental losses are generally passive, which means they can't offset your salary or your business income. Except in the case of the short-term rental loophole. That question, which we covered with Gabriel Vardaro back in episode four, matters a lot more for most investors than whether a rate goes up three points in some future year. So here's where I come down. Don't make an irrevocable tax decision on a bucket two headline. Get the study so you know what's actually there. Then let your tax professional run the numbers both ways, take it now or spread it out with your real income and your real plans. That's the right order. And for the tax pros that are listening, if a client asks you this, I'd love for you to have that illustration in your back pocket. Please feel free to borrow it. One item from that list I promise to come back to because it isn't in my lane, but it's very much in yours if you own real estate. Here's a plan I hear from a lot of investors. Some people call it swap till you drop. You buy a property, you depreciate it, you sell it, and instead of paying tax on the gain, you roll it into the next property with a 1031 exchange, which defers the tax. We covered that with Dave Foster in episode seven. You do that again and again. And again, for decades. And when you pass away, your heirs inherit the property. Some investors do a version of this with the Delaware Statutory Trust once they're tired of being landlords, which is what Tommy Olson walked us through in episode 13. Same idea. Defer, defer, defer, die. And then something big happens. Under current law, your heirs generally get a new basis equal to the property's fair market value on the date of death. That's the step up in basis. All that deferred gain from every exchange and the depreciation you took along the way doesn't get taxed when it passes to them. If they sell soon after, there's often little or no gain to report. We went through exactly how that works for your heirs in episode 19. That's why a proposal to end the step up gets investors' attention. For a lot of families, it's the last step of the whole plan. So let's put it in a bucket. Ending step up in basis is the Tax Foundation's list of proposals. It's bucket two. It isn't law, and it would need a signature, the same as everything else we've talked about today. It's also been proposed before back in 2021, and it didn't become law then either. And earlier versions came with exemptions and thresholds, so the details of any new version would decide who it actually touches. headline that says step up is going away tells you almost nothing until you see those details. What I do about it? Nothing dramatic. Don't sell a properly early to beat a proposal. Don't rip up an estate plan over a headline. But if your whole exit strategy depends on one rule staying exactly the way it is, it's worth one conversation with your estate planning attorney and your tax professional about what you would do if it changed. Knowing your plan B costs you an hour. Not knowing it could cost your family a whole lot more. Before we run through some quick questions, let me bring this all down to the three people I said this episode was for. Investors first. If you own rentals or commercial property, the election didn't change your depreciation. Your 100% bonus rules are the same. Your 27.5 and 39 year schedules are the same. What does deserves your attention? Right now is your own paperwork? Do you know the contract date and the placed in service date on everything you've bought since 2024? Do you know whether a property you closed on years ago has ever had a cost segregation study? And if your long-term plan leans on step-up in basis, have you ever said that plan out loud to the people who'd carry it out? Those are the three things worth an hour this month. And none of them depended on who wins. Business owners, your list is a little bit longer because more of the proposals touch you. If you're a C corporation, the corporate rate debate is worth following and it's worth asking your tax professionals how a higher rate would change your plans if it's ever passed. If you've got employees who've been claiming the deductions for tips or overtime, know that the tax foundation lists those among the provisions scheduled to expire at the end of 2028. And if you make a product, the factory building Window is the single biggest planning item in this whole episode. Start the conversation with your tax professional and your contractor well before you need to. A building that's still a sketch on a napkin in 2028 isn't gonna make it. And tax professionals. Your clients are gonna call. The question will sound like, should I be worried? And the useful answer is the three buckets. What's law? What's proposed? What would take a signature? Then the follow-up that'll actually earn your fee. For the pre-2025 contacts headed into 2027, the 168N election has to be on the original return, and the client's asking whether to hold off on deduction in case rates rise, you know your client's facts better than anybody. My hope is that the illustrations in this episode make those calls less stressful and shorter for you. If you've got a client who'd benefit from a cost segregation study, a 179D review, or an R&D credit study, I'm happy to work right alongside you. I'll do the analysis at no cost. The study runs through CSSI. And for a look back study, we can prepare a draft form 3115 with the report if you'd like one. You stay the client's tax professional. You review, apply your judgment, and sign. Call me at 770-224-8504-Extension 2 and we'll talk about how that works. Now a few quick questions. These are ones that I'm hearing, and I'll bet they're on your mind this week. Quick answers. Does the election change anything on my 2026 tax return? No. Your 26 return gets filed next year under the law as it stands today. Should I rush to close on a property before December 31st because of the election? Not because of the election. If you're closing this year anyway, the date you place the property in service decides which year the depreciation lands in, so know that date. But don't buy something you weren't going to buy because of a headline. Can Congress change a tax rule and make it apply to earlier dates? It can. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act did with some with bonus depreciation reaching back to January 19th of 2025. That's why it's worth asking what start date a proposal would have. Is 100% bonus depreciation going away in 2027? Not under current law. For property acquired and placed in service after January 19th of 2025, there's no end date in the statute. The exception is the pre-2025 contract situation we talked about, which hit zero for most property placed in service in 2027 that was purchased prior to that deadline. I'm a landlord. Does the factory building deduction help me? Generally not. If you're leasing to an unrelated tenant, it's built for owners who use the building in their own production. Does the corporate rate proposal affect my LLC? If your LLC is taxed as a partnership or it's a single member LLC that isn't taxed as a corporation, the corporate rate doesn't apply to it directly. Your tax professional can confirm how your entity is taxed. Does any of this touch 1031 exchanges? Nothing on the Tax Foundation's list goes after 1031 exchanges. The thing that touches the 1031 strategy is the step up proposal because it changes what happens at the end of the chain. What happens to the tax on tips and overtime? Those deductions are law today and they're scheduled to expire at the end of 2028. The Tax Foundation says some Democrats support extending them. That'd be a new bill with a signature. Is 179D coming back? There's nothing on the list that I've seen. Plan around June 30th, 2026 construction date and listen to episode 30. Should I do a cost segregation study now or wait to see what happens? My advice is do the analysis now. It's no cost, and it tells you what's there. Then decide with your tax professional when and how to use it. Before the playbook, let me make sure everyone else knows where I can help. If you own investment or commercial property, or your business develops or improves products, processes, or software, you've probably wondered at some point what a study would actually be worth on your numbers. Want to know whether a study would even pay for itself on your property? That's what the no-cost analysis is for. Cost segregation, 179D or R&D. No obligation, no pitch. If a study won't pay for itself, I'll be the first to tell you that because I'd rather say no now and talk to you about your next property than push to sell you something that doesn't make sense. You can book a time at Calendly.com slash David Dash Wiener slash CS or just call me at 770-224-8504-option two. It's all in the show notes too. Okay, let's turn all of this into something you can actually do before the year closes. Here's your playbook for the week after the election. Five steps. Step one, bucket everything. The next time somebody sends you an article about what's coming for your taxes, ask three questions before you react. Is it law? Is it a proposal? And if it's a proposal, what would I take to get signed? And what date would it start? Most of what you'll see for the next two years won't pass that test. Step two. Write down the two dates for every property you've acquired since the start of 2024, the date the purchase contract became binding or the closing date, and the date the property was placed in service. If both are after January 19th, 2025, you're in 100% territory. If the contract came first and the property still isn't in service, call your tax professional this month because placed in service in 2026 means 20%. Placed in service in 2027 means 0%. Step three. If you manufacture, produce, or refine a product and you've been thinking about building or expanding, put January 1st, 2029 on your calendar. That's the date construction has to begin before. Then get the production portion of this building measured and the doc and documented before the return for the year it's placed into service gets filed. Because the election goes on that original return and it's very hard to undo. Step four: Before you make any decision to wait on deductions because rates might go up, ask your tax professional to run it both ways with your real numbers. Take it now or elect out of bonus and spread it out. And don't make an irrevocable election on a bucket two headline. Step five. If you own property with a cost basis over about $150,000. That never had a cost segregation study, or a commercial building that's never had a 179D review, or a business that does any kind of product or process development, book a no-cost analysis. Callendly.com slash David Dash Wiener slash CS or 770-224-8504 extension two. I'll tell you whether a study makes sense, what the estimated benefit looks like, and if it doesn't make sense, you'll hear that from me too. Elections change the conversations. The tax code changes when somebody signs something. Until then, the deadlines that matter are the ones already written down, and you've got all of them now. If this helped, send it to the investor or business owner who texted you about the election this week. Subscribe to the newsletter attackstrategyplaybook dot com slash newsletter for the playbook notes on this one, including the three buckets on a single page. And follow the show because next week we're back on schedule with episode three of the R&D series, how R&D credit audits work, and what the IRS wants to see on Form 6765. Nothing in this episode is tax advice for your situation. Your numbers are your numbers, and they need a professional who knows them. My job is to make sure you walk into that conversation already knowing what to ask. My dad was a CPA, and he had a line I still live by. Tax evasion is a crime. Tax avoidance is mandatory. I'm David Wiener, Mr. Cashflow. I'll see you next Tuesday morning on the Tax Strategy Playbook.