One Big Beautiful Bill Tax Guide: The 2026 Provisions That Actually Change Business and Family Filings

Signed into law in 2025 as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, this reconciliation package rewrote several federal tax provisions that Miami and South Florida business owners had been living with for years. This pillar guide is a plain-language map of the provisions that most often show up in the returns we prepare: first-year depreciation for equipment and machinery, domestic research and development expensing, the Section 179 expense limits for 2025 and 2026, a new children's savings vehicle called Trump Accounts, and a partially refundable adoption credit. For every provision below we quote the IRS directly and then link to a deeper spoke post where the mechanics live. If you want a workup against your own filings, our advisory solutions team can model the changes before your next return goes out.

The headline change for business owners is a straight 100 percent first-year deduction. The IRS puts it plainly: "For most qualifying business property bought and put into use after Jan. 19, 2025, businesses can now deduct 100 percent of the cost in the first year."^[1] That reverses the phase-down that had been steadily scaling back the first-year bonus deduction under the pre-OBBB schedule. For a Miami restaurant buying kitchen equipment, a construction firm buying vehicles, or a services practice buying computers, the practical effect is that the entire cost of qualifying property placed in service after Jan. 19, 2025 can drop the current-year tax bill instead of being spread across the property's depreciable life. For the walkthrough on how the change interacts with Section 179 and what property qualifies, see our spoke on 100% bonus depreciation and Section 179 in 2026.

Section 179 lets a business elect to expense qualifying property in the year it is placed in service, up to an annual dollar ceiling. The 2025 ceiling is stated by the IRS as: "For tax years beginning in 2025, the maximum section 179 expense deduction is $2,500,000."^[2] The 2026 ceiling rises with inflation: "For tax years beginning in 2026, the maximum section 179 expense deduction is $2,560,000."^[3] Owners choosing between Section 179 and the newly restored 100 percent bonus depreciation should note that Section 179 is elective and has a hard dollar ceiling, while bonus depreciation applies by default to qualifying property with no per-taxpayer cap once eligible. For most heavy-equipment purchases the two provisions can stack in the same tax year.

Under TCJA, taxpayers had been required to capitalize and amortize domestic research and development costs over multiple tax years, a change that hit software firms, engineering shops, and product-development teams disproportionately hard. OBBB Section 174A undoes that for domestic research: "For taxable years beginning after Dec. 31, 2024, taxpayers may deduct domestic research or experimental expenditures which are paid or incurred by the taxpayer during the taxable year."^[4] Businesses that would rather smooth the deduction can still elect capitalization: "Alternatively, taxpayers may elect to capitalize and take an amortization deduction for domestic research or experimental expenditures over a period of no less than 60 months"^[5]. That 60-month floor is unchanged from the prior version of the rule. For deeper mechanics, an election-versus-default comparison, and how to work with the IRS on method changes, see our spoke on Section 174A and R&D expensing in 2026.

OBBB also created a new children's savings vehicle called Trump Accounts and paired it with a limited federal pilot contribution. The IRS summary reads: "The federal government will make a one-time $1,000 contribution for each eligible child's account".^[6] Once the account is open, it can grow through outside deposits: "Authorized contributions from individuals and employers are allowed up to $5,000 per year".^[7] There is an adulthood lock on the funds, since "Generally, money cannot be withdrawn before the year the child turns 18".^[9] Eligibility rules, opening mechanics, and interaction with other children's savings vehicles are the main questions parents ask us; the related-post panel below links to our dedicated Trump Accounts spoke for the full breakdown.

Adopting families got a durable, if partial, change. The IRS summary is: "Beginning tax years after Dec. 31, 2024, up to $5,000 (indexed for inflation) of the adoption credit may be refundable".^[8] Before OBBB, the entire adoption credit was nonrefundable, meaning it could zero out the tax bill but not create an actual refund. The refundable portion changes the math for lower-earning families where a portion of the credit had gone unused each year and expired. Carryforward rules still apply to amounts above the refundable share, so the planning question is how much of an adoption year's expenses to accelerate into the refundable window versus roll forward against future liability.

For business owners who have not run first-year expensing before, it helps to anchor the vocabulary. The IRS publication on depreciating property opens with its own definition: "Depreciation is an annual income tax deduction that allows you to recover the cost or other basis of certain property over the time you use the property."^[10] Bonus depreciation and Section 179 both accelerate that recovery, letting an owner deduct in year one what would otherwise be spread across the property's depreciable life. Understanding which purchases qualify for each treatment, and how the choice interacts with net operating losses, state conformity to the federal rules, and passive activity limits, is where a return preparer earns their keep.

OBBB also added several deductions and credits for individual workers, seniors, and families that we cover in dedicated posts because their phase-outs and qualification rules deserve their own treatment. The headline items are the new above-the-line deduction for qualified tips, the new above-the-line deduction for qualified overtime pay, an additional deduction for seniors, and a raised cap on the state and local tax deduction with an income-based phase-out. Because the eligibility mechanics and MAGI phase-out thresholds differ line by line, we point clients to the fact sheets on those specific provisions rather than to the general provisions page. Our business tax return preparation team layers those changes into both the personal and business filings we prepare together.

OBBB moved several of the biggest lines on a business return, so the highest-value planning conversations for 2026 are about timing purchases, allocating between Section 179 and bonus depreciation, and choosing the domestic research expensing default versus the sixty-month amortization election. For families, the choices center on whether to open a Trump Account, when to contribute, and whether the refundable adoption credit changes a return decision. Our business tax return preparation team handles the business-side modeling; our advisory solutions team runs a longer-horizon plan when the answer spans several years. Owners of professional-services firms may also find the professional services tax help page useful for how these provisions have played out in similar practices.