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A new service van loses value the minute it leaves the lot. The IRS, oddly generous on this one point, will usually let you deduct it just as fast.
Most plumbing shop owners know “you can write off the truck” the way they know the Cowboys will break their heart by January.
It’s true, but the details decide how it goes.
Which truck, bought when, and written off under which rule are the questions that turn a vague write-off into an actual number on your return.
So let’s walk through the two rules that do the work, Section 179 and bonus depreciation for plumbing, and what they mean for the vans, jetters, and cameras a plumbing shop buys in 2026.
Normally, equipment gets written off a slice at a time over several years, which is the tax code’s way of saying “we’ll pay you back eventually.”
Section 179 lets you skip the slicing and deduct the cost of qualifying equipment in the year you put it to work.
For a plumbing shop, that covers most of what you’d expect: service vans, work pickups, trailers, hydro jetters, drain cameras, pipe threaders, and the locator that’s been held together with electrical tape since 2019.
Computers and business software used in the shop count too.
There’s one condition worth knowing up front. IRS Publication 946 limits the deduction to “the taxable income from the active conduct of any trade or business during the year.”
In simple terms, Section 179 can take your business profit down to zero, but not below it. Anything you can’t use “can be carried to the next year,” so the deduction isn’t lost, just parked.
It also has a business-use test. The IRS only allows Section 179 on property you use “more than 50% for business in the year you place it in service.” The van that doubles as your kid’s ride to band practice gets a smaller deduction, and one that’s mostly personal gets none. The dollar limit, on the other hand, is rarely the problem.
Big enough that it won’t be the thing stopping you. For tax years beginning in 2026, the IRS sets the maximum Section 179 deduction at $2,560,000, and it only starts shrinking once your total equipment purchases for the year pass $4,090,000, per Publication 946.
Unless you’re buying a fleet of 40 vans this year, those numbers are background noise. The limit that actually matters for most plumbing shops is the income limit from the last section. A shop that had a slow year can’t use Section 179 to turn a small profit into a loss.
That’s where the second rule comes in, and it just got a lot better.
Bonus depreciation had been shrinking a little every year under the old schedule. Then the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed course. Per Publication 946, the law “reinstated the 100% special depreciation allowance for certain qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025.”
For a plumbing shop, that means equipment you buy and put to work in 2026 can generally be deducted in full in the first year under bonus depreciation. It also doesn’t have Section 179’s business income limit, which makes it the more useful tool in a year when you invested ahead of your revenue.
Two other details are easy to miss. Bonus applies automatically unless you elect out, so it’s the default rather than something you have to ask for. And the IRS says qualified property “can be either new property or certain used property,” which is good news if your last three vans came from an auction in Haltom City. Whether the van itself qualifies is a different question.
This is where plumbers win or lose the most money on paper, and it comes down to what the vehicle actually is.
The IRS caps Section 179 on heavy SUVs, meaning passenger vehicles rated over 6,000 and up to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. For 2026, Publication 946 sets that cap at $32,000 per vehicle. So the big crew-cab SUV you “mostly” use for estimates hits a Section 179 ceiling, and the rest of its cost has to come through bonus depreciation, as long as it really is mostly for business.
Most working plumbing vehicles don’t. Publication 946 exempts a vehicle “equipped with a cargo area (either open or enclosed by a cap) of at least 6 feet in interior length that is not readily accessible from the passenger compartment.” That covers the long-bed pickup with the ladder rack. It also exempts an enclosed van that “does not have seating rearward of the driver’s seat,” which describes nearly every cargo van with shelving and a smell of PVC primer.
Lighter vehicles, at 6,000 pounds and under, run into a separate set of annual caps for passenger cars. They’re a lot less generous. If you’re choosing between two trucks, check the weight rating on the door sticker before you check the paint color, and ask us before you sign.
Once the truck qualifies, which rule to use comes down to the year you had.
This isn’t really an either-or decision. Section 179 is applied first, and bonus depreciation picks up what’s left.
Section 179 is the precise tool. You choose which assets to expense and how much, which lets us land your taxable income where we want it instead of just flattening it. That matters if you’re an S-corp owner balancing your salary, your distributions, and your estimated payments. Our S-corporation tax calculator shows how those pieces move together.
Bonus depreciation is the blunt tool. It hits everything in a class of assets at once, and it doesn’t care whether you had a good year.
Let’s look at an example. A Fort Worth plumbing shop buys a used cargo van and a new hydro jetter, about $70,000 all in, and both are working before Christmas. If the shop has plenty of profit, Section 179 can cover both, and the owner can decide whether the whole cost comes off this year or some of it waits for a year with a higher bill.
If it’s been a thin year, bonus depreciation can take the full cost without the income limit getting in the way. Same trucks, same shop, two different answers depending on the year you had, which is exactly why we run it before the year closes.
The next decision is about a date on the calendar.
Both rules turn on the date an asset is “placed in service,” which the IRS defines as when it’s “ready and available for a specific use.”
That’s not the day you ordered it or the day you paid the deposit.
A van that’s paid for but still sitting at the dealership on New Year’s Eve is a 2027 deduction. The same van in your lot, tagged, insured, and ready to roll counts for 2026, even if nobody’s taken it on a call yet.
That makes October and November the time to decide, not the last week of December. Supply delays on upfitted vans are real, and “the shelving guy is running behind” has cost more than one shop a full year on its deduction. Our year-end tax planning checklist for DFW trades businesses covers the rest of what belongs on the Q4 list.
None of it holds up without the paperwork, though.
The deduction is only as good as the records behind it. For each piece of equipment, your books should show what you paid, when you bought it, the date it went into service, and how much of its use is for business.
The business-use part matters most on vehicles. A mileage log feels like busywork right up until someone asks for it, and a missing one makes that “more than 50%” test hard to prove.
Your phone can track it automatically, which beats reconstructing a year of service calls from memory in March.
QuickBooks has a fixed asset list that most plumbing shops never touch. If yours is empty, or your van is sitting under “Truck Stuff,” our QuickBooks cleanup service can sort it before tax season sorts it for you.
Our accountants for plumbers work with Fort Worth and DFW shops year-round, so equipment decisions get made with the tax math already done, not in April when it’s too late to change anything.
And because Texas has no state income tax, the federal side is where this planning pays off.
If you’re weighing a truck or equipment purchase before year-end, reach out to our team and we’ll run your numbers, depending on your situation, before the dealership runs theirs.
Adam Traywick, CPA is the President and founding CPA of Adam Traywick, LLC, a Adam Traywick CPA small-business accounting firm. He has over 20 years of experience helping small business owners across home-services trades, hair salons, real estate, and insurance agencies optimize taxes, run cleaner books, and avoid the surprises that come from once-a-year accountants.
