Congress Urged To Extend and Make Permanent 15-Year Depreciation Schedule

Bricks and mortar, stainless and aluminum all wear out and break down. The foodservice industry has benefited recently from some critical tax benefits on construction and improvements, but without Congressional action, those benefits run out in a few weeks.

Current federal tax law allows operators to write off the cost of restaurant construction and restaurant-building improvements, including leasehold improvements, over a 15-year timeframe. The current depreciation schedule expires at the end of December and reverts to 39 1/2 years in 2012.

Congress has included the 15-year depreciation allowance in major tax bills over the past several years, but has never made it permanent.

The National Restaurant Association is urging lawmakers to act quickly to extend the shorter depreciation schedule beyond ’11 and support bipartisan bills that would create a permanent 15-year schedule. At presstime, H.R. 1265 has 40 co-sponsors; S. 687 has 13 Senate co-sponsors.