depreciation schedules

An attorney friend of mine in San Jose California, Dick Alexander, took this ad out in the Washington Post's National Weekly. He’s apparently willing to spend his own money to help save some of ours. I find his proposal makes a lot of sense. Here it is:

“A simple across-the-board boost to the economy would be to suspend IRS asset depreciation schedules for capital equipment purchases paid with 2009 dollars.

When a business owner buys a capital asset with current dollars it cannot be written off. It must be “depreciated” over a period of years. That makes every owner think twice when making a capital purchase: taxes still need to be paid, but with reduced cash in the till.  read more »