The mechanism: Buried in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, is a provision with an outsized effect on a narrow slice of the economy: 100% first-year bonus depreciation for business aircraft is now permanent, with no phase-down, retroactive to planes placed in service after January 19, 2025. The IRS only issued interim guidance on the mechanics — Notice 2026-11 — this year, which is exactly the kind of dry, compliance-desk news that never makes a markets headline but changes corporate buying behavior overnight. A company that finances or buys a qualifying jet for business use can expense the entire purchase price in year one instead of depreciating it over five-plus years. That is a direct, immediate cash-flow subsidy on a multimillion-dollar asset, and it is a lever CFOs pull hardest right before a fiscal year-end. Every prior version of this rule (2017's TCJA included) had a sunset date that forced a rush-then-lull demand cycle. Making it permanent removes the "use it or lose it" cliff but keeps the underlying incentive fully loaded — and OEM backlogs, now north of $55 billion industry-wide, show buyers are leaning on it.
Who cashes in: