OBBBA Made These Business Tax Breaks Permanent: What San Diego Business Owners Should Revisit Before Year-End
For years, San Diego business owners have planned around an expiration date. The Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction, 100% bonus depreciation, and several other provisions from the 2017 tax law were always scheduled to phase out or disappear. That constant countdown shaped a lot of decisions: whether to buy equipment this year or next, whether to expand the team, whether a certain entity structure still made sense.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law in July 2025, removed that countdown for several of these provisions. For business owners across Sorrento Valley, Carmel Valley, and the rest of San Diego's construction, professional services, defense contracting, medical/dental, and tech/SaaS sectors, that permanence changes the planning conversation more than any single number does.
What actually changed
A few of the headline items now written into permanent law:
The QBI deduction (Section 199A) is now permanent, continuing to allow eligible pass-through business owners to deduct 20% of qualified business income. OBBBA also introduced a new minimum deduction of $400 for any taxpayer with at least $1,000 of qualified business income, and it expanded the phase-in range for wage and property limitations to $75,000 for single filers and $150,000 for joint filers, indexed for inflation after 2026 (Tax Foundation, 2025).
100% first-year bonus depreciation is also back and made permanent, rather than continuing its scheduled phase-down (Carr, Riggs & Ingram, 2025). For business owners weighing equipment purchases, vehicle fleets, or facility build-outs, that removes a timing question that used to dominate every Q4 conversation with an accountant.
Why permanence matters more than the percentages
A 20% deduction or a 100% depreciation rate is only useful if a business owner can plan around it confidently. When these provisions were temporary, decisions about capital expenditures, hiring, and entity structure (S-corp vs. partnership vs. sole proprietorship) often got compressed into a narrow year-end window, driven as much by "use it before it disappears" logic as by the actual needs of the business.
With these provisions now permanent, the more useful question for a business owner becomes multi-year: does the current entity structure still make sense for how the business is growing? Is equipment being purchased on a schedule that matches actual operating needs, or on a schedule driven by tax deadlines? Are QBI limitations being revisited as revenue and W-2 wages change year to year?
The planning gap this tends to expose
Tax permanence also has a way of surfacing a bigger issue for a lot of owners: how tightly personal financial security is tied to the business itself. Consider a composite example drawn from patterns we see often in San Diego: two co-founders of a growing professional services firm, each in their mid-50s, who have reinvested most profits back into the business for over a decade. Their tax planning has been diligent, but neither has a documented answer for what happens to their personal financial picture if the business is sold, transitions to a partner, or simply doesn't sell at the valuation they assumed.
That gap is common. Nationally, roughly a third of small business owners say they have no succession plan or are unsure what one would look like, and a recent Chase survey found that while nearly half of owners expect to step away from their business within a decade, only a small share describe their succession plan as fully developed (Gallup, 2025; Chase, 2026). A permanent tax code doesn't close that gap on its own -- but it does remove one excuse for putting off the larger conversation.
Where this fits into a broader review
A comprehensive review for a San Diego business owner typically walks through several connected pieces: whether the current entity structure still fits the business's growth and QBI eligibility, how equipment and capital purchase timing lines up with actual operating needs now that bonus depreciation isn't set to expire, and how personal retirement and exit planning connect to the value of the business itself. None of this requires guessing at future tax law anymore for these specific provisions -- but it does require actually sitting down with the numbers.
Brad Stevens and the team at BAS Financial walk San Diego business owners through exactly this kind of review, discussed in detail during a complimentary consultation, with fee structures reviewed individually and never generalized. Owners interested in a broader framework for connecting business value to personal financial planning can also explore ourSan Diego Business Owner Blueprintor learn more aboutcoordinating tax efficiency across the full picture.
Sources:Tax Foundation, "FAQ: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act Tax Changes," 2025;Carr, Riggs & Ingram, "Small Business Deductions and Limits You Need to Know in 2025 and 2026," 2025;Gallup, "Most Small-Business Owners Lack a Succession Plan," 2025;Chase, "Local Snapshot: Most Small Business Owners Aren't Prepared for Succession," 2026.
Bradly Stevens is a Registered Representative/Financial Advisor of Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS), member FINRA/SIPC, and a Financial Representative of Guardian. This material is for educational purposes only and is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult your own tax and legal advisors regarding your individual situation. CA Insurance License #0F60819. Tax laws are always subject to change.