MARK KOHLERMain Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, LLC · Owner at Main Street Professionals, LLC

Section 179 vs Depreciation: Which Saves More on $100,000?

14 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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Mark Kohler compares Section 179 and five-year depreciation on a $100,000 equipment purchase. Section 179 lets you write off up to your current year income immediately, but standard depreciation spreads $20,000 deductions across five years. The choice depends on whether you need tax relief now or expect higher income and a bigger tax bracket later.

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We buy a piece of equipment for 100 grand, standard depreciation would be, let's say it's five year equipment, 20,000 a year. That's option one. Option two is I could do what's called 179. I could take as much of a write off I'm allowed to up to the amount of income in my business. So if I made $50,000 in income, I could write off up 50,000 of that equipment. The remaining 50,000 would have to be over five years. So then I do 10 grand a year for the next five years. But 179 lets me take enough write off to bring me to zero. That could be a good thing because you're like, why don't I save the next 50gr write off for the next 5 years? Why do I need to go negative? I'm in the lowest tax freaking bracket. I'm going to make more money next year. I'd like to save that 50 grand over and above the 179 because I'm going to be in a higher bracket next year. Why use it up on a 10 or 15% bracket?