Everyone knows about and is expecting their government rebate check, but did you  know as a business Owner, if you purchase new equipment in 2008, you can get even more back. On February 13, President Bush signed H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. The $152 billion stimulus package includes tax rebates for families and individuals. Even more important, it raised the ceiling on the amount that businesses can deduct in a single year. The stimulus package makes a one-time change to Section 179 of the tax code, which lays out how businesses can deduct the cost of purchasing tangible assets such as equipment, furniture, computers and so on. That figure is adjusted for inflation each year and was scheduled to top out at $128,000 in purchases in 2008. But be advised, the higher limits under Section 179 are targeted at small businesses. Companies with more than $800,000 a year in qualifying asset purchases will not see any change in the amount of depreciable expenses they can claim in 2008.

However, companies of all sizes can take advantage of another accounting bone that Congress threw to the private sector: a change to the so-called "bonus depreciation" that allows companies to write off 50% of the value of an asset in the first year of the purchase, that is up from 20% , this change will enable companies to write off more of their purchases more quickly, though the full value of the asset purchase is still depreciated over five years. For companies claiming the $250,000 deduction in 2008, bonus depreciation would only apply to the amount of qualifying expenses that remain after that one-time deduction is taken. For example: a company with $350,000 in qualifying asset purchases in 2008 will get a dollar-for-dollar tax write-off  for the first $250,000 this year. The remaining $100,000 will have to be depreciated over five years, as it would in any other year. However, in 2008 the first $50,000 of that can be counted as a depreciable expense as well, rather than just the first $20,000. So take it why you can, because you just do not know what 2009 will bring with a new President , Senate and Congress being seated.