Equipment write-offs: Section 179, bonus, and the de minimis shortcut

How do I write off practice equipment?

Practice equipment — an exam table, a laptop, therapy furniture, a telehealth camera — reaches your return one of three ways: expense it in full the year you place it in service under a Section 179 election, take first-year bonus depreciation, or spread it across the asset's recovery period under MACRS 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. Everyday consumables never enter that system at all; they are ordinary and necessary supplies deducted the year you buy them 2Ref 2Internal Revenue Service (2026).Guide to business expense resources.That ordinary and necessary business expenses — low-cost supplies and consumables — are deductible the year purchased, without capitalization..

The three capitalized routes are not mutually exclusive. A Section 179 election lets you expense qualifying property up front; bonus depreciation is a separate first-year allowance; MACRS is the default multi-year schedule that catches whatever you did not accelerate. Most solo practices use some combination, decided item by item at tax time — not at the register.

Section 179: expensing equipment the year you buy it

Section 179 lets a practice deduct the full cost of qualifying equipment in the year it is placed in service, instead of depreciating it over several years 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. It applies to tangible business property — furniture, computers, clinical instruments, off-the-shelf software. The election is made on the depreciation form filed with your return, and it is an election: you choose it asset by asset.

Two limits bound it. There is an annual dollar cap the IRS indexes each year, with a phase-out once total equipment placed in service crosses a threshold — Publication 946 carries the current figures, so confirm them for the tax year rather than relying on last year's number 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. There is also a taxable-income limit: Section 179 cannot create or deepen a business loss, so an unused amount carries forward. This is the first reason expensing everything now is not automatically the best move — a deduction you cannot use this year may be worth more spread across profitable years ahead.

Bonus depreciation and MACRS: the other two routes

Bonus depreciation is a first-year allowance that applies to qualifying property automatically unless you elect out, and — unlike Section 179 — it can create a loss 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. The bonus percentage is set by statute and has been changing year to year, so treat it as a volatile figure: check the rate for the tax year in Publication 946 rather than assuming a prior year's percentage still holds 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules..

Whatever you do not expense under 179 or bonus is recovered under MACRS, the default schedule that assigns each asset class a recovery period and depreciates it over those years 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. A useful ordering for a solo:

• Section 179 first, for targeted items where you want to control the amount and stay inside the taxable-income limit.
• Bonus depreciation for the remainder you want fully expensed now, accepting that it can run you to a loss.
• MACRS for anything you would rather deduct steadily over time — often the smarter choice when a big current deduction would waste your QBI deduction or your lower brackets.

The de minimis shortcut for low-cost items

Most of what a small practice buys is too small to capitalize at all. Low-cost supplies and consumables — the everyday items that keep the room running — are ordinary and necessary business expenses, deducted in the year purchased with no depreciation schedule to track 2Ref 2Internal Revenue Service (2026).Guide to business expense resources.That ordinary and necessary business expenses — low-cost supplies and consumables — are deductible the year purchased, without capitalization.. You do not put a box of intake forms or a set of pens on a multi-year recovery table.

For items that sit just above "supplies" — a modest headset, a small monitor — the tax rules also provide a de minimis safe harbor election that lets a business expense items under a per-item dollar threshold rather than capitalizing them. The threshold is set by regulation and the election is made annually with your return; confirm the current per-item amount with your accountant before you file, because it is the line that decides whether a $200 gadget is a supply or a depreciable asset. Used well, it spares you from tracking dozens of tiny assets — a real time saving for a solo doing their own books.

Placed in service, business-use percentage, and mixed-use items

The deduction attaches to the year you place the item in service — put it to work in the practice — not the year you ordered or paid for it 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. A camera bought in December but first used in January is a next-year deduction. This timing rule is where year-end equipment buys either land the deduction you planned or miss it by a week, so date the day it goes into use, not the invoice.

Mixed-use items carry a second rule: you deduct only the business-use percentage. A laptop or phone used partly for personal life is depreciated on the business share, and property used 50% or less for business faces tighter rules under MACRS 1Ref 1Internal Revenue Service (2026).Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property.The three equipment-recovery routes — the Section 179 expensing election and its annual limits and taxable-income limit, first-year bonus depreciation, and the MACRS multi-year schedule, plus placed-in-service and business-use rules.. Keep a contemporaneous log of business versus personal use for anything that plausibly serves both — that log is what turns a business-use percentage from a guess into a substantiated number.

How the write-off ripples: QBI, SE tax, and your quarterlies

An equipment deduction is not free money — it lowers your Schedule C net, and that number drives three other lines. It reduces the base for self-employment tax, which runs at 15.3% 3Ref 3Internal Revenue Service (2026).Self-employed individuals tax center.That a deduction lowers Schedule C net earnings, which reduces the self-employment-tax base of 15.3% up to the Social Security wage base and Medicare beyond. on net earnings up to the Social Security wage base and Medicare beyond it 3Ref 3Internal Revenue Service (2026).Self-employed individuals tax center.That a deduction lowers Schedule C net earnings, which reduces the self-employment-tax base of 15.3% up to the Social Security wage base and Medicare beyond.. It reduces qualified business income, and because the QBI deduction is up to 20% of that income 4Ref 4Internal Revenue Service (2026).Qualified Business Income Deduction.That the QBI deduction is up to 20% of qualified business income, so a deduction that reduces that income can also reduce the QBI benefit., accelerating a large deduction now can shrink the very 20% you would otherwise claim — the classic reason to weigh MACRS against a full 179 election.

A large write-off also changes what you owe in-year, so recompute your quarterlies after any major purchase 5Ref 5Internal Revenue Service (2026).Estimated taxes.That a large deduction changes in-year tax owed, so quarterly estimated payments should be recomputed after a major equipment purchase.. This is where the decision belongs with your accountant, not a rule of thumb: the election tends to pay off when it lands against high-taxed income and hurts when it wastes a low bracket or your QBI deduction — here is the math to run together. If a past year's election was missed, amending that return may recover it. Handled aggressively, first-year write-offs are among the irs audit triggers reviewers watch, which makes the next section the one that protects the deduction.

Substantiate it: what to keep and how long

A deduction you cannot document is a deduction you can lose. For each capitalized item, keep the purchase invoice, proof of payment, the placed-in-service date, and — for anything mixed-use — the business-use log. The IRS's general recordkeeping guidance points to keeping business records for at least three years, six years where income is substantially understated, and four years for employment-tax records 6Ref 6Internal Revenue Service (2026).Recordkeeping.Retention guidance — generally three years, six for substantial underreporting, four for employment-tax records — applied to equipment purchase and depreciation records.. Equipment records live at the long end of that range, because a depreciation schedule reaches across several returns.

A few habits keep this painless for a solo. Photograph or scan receipts the day of purchase; note on each what the item is and where it is used in the practice; keep the depreciation schedule your software generates with the return it belongs to. This is ordinary small business tax hygiene, and it is the difference between defending a write-off in an afternoon and reconstructing it from memory. Equipment you buy as inventory to resell — selling supplements or devices to patients — follows different cost-of-goods rules, so keep that stock accounted for separately.