Iowa businesses will be able to claim a much larger depreciation expense deduction on their 2014 state tax returns under legislation approved at the Statehouse. The Iowa General Assembly last week passed a conformity bill – Senate File 126 – that would allow taxpayers to claim up to $500,000 in Section 179 expense on their Iowa returns, the same as on federal returns, according to a tax update letter from Joe Kristan at Roth & Co. P.C. Without the conformity bill, the Iowa Section 179 deduction would have been limited to $25,000. Iowa conformed to almost all provisions of the December federal tax law, but it did not adopt the federal “bonus depreciation” rules that allow a deduction for 50 percent of the cost of otherwise depreciated new assets in the year they are placed in service, Kristan wrote. Gov. Terry Branstad is expected to sign the bill.