Bought the rig in December? Placed-in-service, bonus depreciation, and the year-end checklist

There's a reason so many rental rigs change hands in November and December: a business asset placed in service before year-end can produce a first-year depreciation deduction that dwarfs its first season's income — under current law, bonus depreciation stands at 100% for qualifying property. But the deduction follows the placed-in-service date, not the purchase date, and first-time buyers trip on the difference every year.

Placed in service means available, not busy

A rig is placed in service when it is ready and available for rent — listed on a platform or otherwise genuinely offered, in rentable condition — even if no guest books it until January. A rig sitting in a seller's driveway, mid-repair, or bought "to fix up first" is not placed in service, no matter what's on the bill of sale.

What establishes the date is evidence: the live listing, dated photos of the rig ready to go, the storage contract at its rental home, the insurance bound with peer-to-peer rental disclosed. Assemble those in December and the date is a fact. Reconstruct them in April and it's an argument.

The year-end checklist

1. Close the paperwork into the right name. Bill of sale in the buyer's name — yours or your LLC's — matching how the rig will be owned and insured. Retitle/registration done or in motion; keep the DOL receipt, because it carries the next item.
2. Capture the full basis on day one. Purchase price + use tax + one-time title charges. That use-tax line on the registration receipt is frequently four figures on an RV — it belongs in the basis build-up, where it raises the deduction, not in a glovebox.
3. Bind insurance with renting disclosed. A personal policy that doesn't know about the rentals is a gap, not a saving. Rental-disclosed coverage (the Roamly-style peer-to-peer policies exist for exactly this) bound from the ownership date.
4. Make it genuinely available. Listing live (even at a winter rate), storage arranged where renters can be met, the rig clean and rentable. Zero December trips is fine; zero availability is not.
5. Start the day counts now. Rental days, personal-use days, and mileage from the first drive — the personal-use test and the mileage log both start at placed-in-service, and December's handful of days is exactly where next year's reconstruction headaches are born.
6. Open the books as their own thing. A separate account or card for the rental business from the first expense. Commingled December spending is how a clean first year turns into a sorting project.
7. Tell your CPA before the return, not after. A December rig changes the year's picture — depreciation elections, the Schedule C/E question, personal-use flags. A ten-minute December conversation beats an April surprise for both of you.

And the honest caveat

Bonus depreciation accelerates a deduction; it doesn't create value out of nothing — it pulls future years' depreciation into year one, and a later sale can recapture it. Whether taking the maximum first-year write-off is right for your income picture is a planning call for your CPA. What is never wrong is having the rig's facts — basis, placed-in-service evidence, day counts — ready for that conversation.

CloseFleet was practically born for this case: its founder's Packet #0 is a December-season rig — a real Sunseeker bought in the fall, basis built from the bill of sale and DOL receipt, day counts from the dashboard. Enter the purchase, import the statements, and the packet assembles the depreciation sheet, flags the questions, and lists the gaps. For one rig with straightforward books, the packet is free.

The federal sources

• Placed in service, and the 100% special depreciation allowance under current law: IRS, Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property

CloseFleet organizes records for review by your CPA; it is not a tax preparer and provides no tax advice. Bonus depreciation rules and placed-in-service determinations are summarized generally; your CPA applies them to your purchase.

Upload the year — platform exports, statements, the rig's facts — and get the CPA Packet: income reconciled, expenses categorized, mileage logged, depreciation sheet built, questions flagged for your CPA. Free for one rig with straightforward books.