The new “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) is a landmark piece of legislation for small business owners, offering powerful new tools to reduce your tax burden and improve cash flow. Here are three immediate steps you should take to capitalize on the new law:
- Claim Your Retroactive R&D Refund: The OBBB permanently restores 100% expensing for R&D costs and, crucially, makes it retroactive. If your business (with under $31M in average gross receipts) incurred R&D expenses in 2022, 2023, or 2024—including software development and engineering salaries—you can now file amended tax returns to claim an immediate deduction for those costs. This could result in a substantial tax refund, putting cash directly back into your business.
- Optimize for the 23% Pass-Through Deduction: The Section 199A deduction for pass-through businesses (S-Corps, Partnerships, LLCs) is now permanent and has been increased from 20% to 23%. This is a major, long-term benefit. Work with your advisor to ensure your business is structured correctly to maximize this deduction on all your qualified business income.
- Re-evaluate Capital Spending: The law makes 100% bonus depreciation for equipment a permanent feature of the tax code. This means you can write off the full cost of new machinery, computers, and other equipment in the year you buy it. This dramatically improves the after-tax return on investment for capital expenditures. It’s time to pull your capital budget off the shelf and re-run the numbers; projects that didn’t make financial sense before may be highly profitable now.
