My colleague, Scott Heintzelman, has a great blog entitled The Exuberant Accountant.  In one of his most recent posts, he references a site that gives a breakdown by state and county of the stimulas money that is being spent on projects, etc.

If you are interested to see where your county ranks and where the money is being spent, go check out the site.  This is your tax dollars at work and you should know where they are going.

The recent Stimulus Tax Package includes an extension of bonus depreication from 2008 into all of 2009.  This means that for all new equipment (including single purpose ag buildings) qualifies for 50% of the cost being deducted in 2009 with remainder being depreciated over the normal tax life of the equipment.

For example, if a farmer bought a new tractor for $150,000 in 2009, the old law would have allowed a normal depreciation deduction of about $16,000.  Under the new law, the farmer can deduct $75,000 plus about $8,000 for a total of $83,000.  There is no income or cost limits on this deduction.

Also, the new law has extended the $250,000 limit on Section 179 expensing to any taxpayers whose year starts in 2009.  This means that the purchase of qualifing equipment (does not have to be new) can be fully deducted up to $250,000.  This amount is  phased-out once your equipment purchases start to exceed $800,000.   There are other limitations on this deduction, so make sure to check with your tax advisor.

I will pass on some of the other tax goodies from the Act in later posts.