Your Retirement Story: What Business Owners Need to Know About the New Tax Law

Retirement Strategist Carroll Golden

If you own a business, retirement planning is never just about your personal savings. It’s about your daily lifestyle and rewards, exit strategy, your family, your employees, and your legacy.

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the nearly 1,000-page One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law. While it touches every corner of the tax code, several provisions stand out for business owners. Some create opportunities to grow, sell, or transfer wealth. Others highlight the complexity of blending business decisions with personal retirement planning.

And while the details may make your head spin, the real takeaway is clear: business owners cannot afford a “set it and forget it” approach to retirement.

The Key Business Provisions

Here are the most notable changes for business owners, and how they might influence your retirement and succession planning:

Qualified Business Income (QBI) Deduction Made Permanent

The 20% deduction for qualified business income (QBI)—first introduced in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—is now permanent.

This deduction allows many pass-through business owners (sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations) to reduce taxable income by up to 20%. Income limits have also been increased, expanding eligibility.

Why it matters: If you’re building retirement wealth through your business, this deduction boosts after-tax cash flow. Coordinating how you structure income and distributions is now a core part of retirement strategy.

Bonus Depreciation Reinstated Permanently

The OBBBA permanently reinstates bonus depreciation (Section168(k)), which had been phasing out under prior law.

This allows businesses to immediately deduct the full cost of qualifying equipment and property, instead of depreciating over time.

Why it matters: For owners nearing retirement, bonus depreciation can be a tool for managing taxable income and funding growth or succession transitions. But the timing of purchases and deductions requires careful planning with a tax professional.

Research and Development (R&D) Expensing Restored

Domestic research and development (R&D) costs can now be immediately expensed (Section174(e)), reversing the TCJA requirement to spread them over five years.

Why it matters: For entrepreneurs in tech, manufacturing, or innovation-driven fields, this reduces upfront tax burdens and can free up cash to reinvest—or redirect into retirement funding.

Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) Expanded

The OBBBA expands the exclusion for qualified small business stock (QSBS) (Section1202):

• Partial exclusion after three years

• 100% exclusion after five years

• Subject to asset limits and acquisition rules

Why it matters: This creates opportunities for founders and investors to sell businesses tax-efficiently. For retirement planning, it makes timing the sale of a business or shares even more critical.

State and Local Tax (SALT) Phaseouts for High-Income Owners

The cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions increases to $40,000—but begins to phase out for those with incomes above $500,000, disappearing completely at $600,000 or more.

Why it matters: Many business owners fall into these higher-income brackets. Knowing whether this deduction applies could influence where and when you take income—or even when you choose to retire.

Why This Matters to Your Retirement Story

For business owners, tax law isn’t just about this year’s return—it’s about how your life’s work translates into retirement security.

These provisions can:

• Lower your taxable income while you’re growing the business.

• Create opportunities to sell or transfer ownership more efficiently.

• Affect how much wealth and when you ultimately pass on to family or heirs.

But here’s the key: these benefits only matter if you plan for them. Mistiming a sale, ignoring depreciation opportunities, or misunderstanding income phaseouts can turn potential tax savings into lost dollars.

The Personal Side of Business Decisions

Numbers are just one side of the equation. Retirement planning for business owners is also about:

• Family dynamics: Will your children take over, or will you sell to outsiders?

• Employees: How do you protect the team you built when you step away?

• Community impact: Will your legacy live on in the town, industry, or network that supported your business?

And then there’s caregiving—a challenge that’s both deeply personal and financially disruptive. As I wrote in my books How Not to Pull Your Family Apart and How Not to Pull Your Life Apart: Caregiving—Overcome Challenges and Objections to Planning Conversations, the costs of short-, extended-, and long-term care can not only divide families but also tear apart even the strongest retirement or succession plan. For business owners, this risk is amplified: caregiving needs can force premature exits, deplete resources, or derail legacy intentions if not addressed early.

This is where the concept of “personal, but never private” comes into focus. Your exit strategy doesn’t just affect you. It ripples outward—to your family, your partners, your employees, and and even your community.

The Great Wealth Transfer and Business Owners

This is especially important in the context of the Great Wealth Transfer—an estimated $84 trillion expected to move from older Americans to Gen Xers and Millennials over the coming decades.

For business owners, this isn’t just about personal inheritance. It’s about deciding whether your company becomes part of that transfer:

• Do you sell and pass the proceeds to heirs?

• Do you transition ownership within the family?

• Do you use estate planning tools to combine business succession with tax-efficient wealth transfer?

Without careful planning, a thriving business can become a burden instead of a blessing. With smart guidance, it can become the cornerstone of a lasting legacy.

Why Planning Matters—Even If Retirement Feels Far Away

If you’re a younger business owner, you may feel that retirement is so far in the future it hardly seems real. Right now, the focus may be on making payroll, managing growth, or just keeping the business thriving in a competitive market.

But that’s exactly why planning matters. Every choice you make today—from how you structure your business, to how you manage taxes, to how you reinvest profits—shapes the foundation of your eventual retirement.

Ignoring retirement because it feels distant is like ignoring maintenance on a machine until it breaks down. The earlier you plan, the more options you’ll have—and the less pressure you’ll face when the time to step away finally arrives.

Why Professional Guidance Is Essential

As a business owner, your retirement “script” is shaped by more than spreadsheets. It’s built from the cultural and generational influences you grew up with, the family expectations you carry, and the pressures of providing for employees and community.

• If you grew up watching parents struggle through economic uncertainty, you may lean toward caution—holding back from reinvesting or delaying an exit.

• If you came of age in a booming economy, optimism might color your expectations—perhaps assuming the sale of your business will always fetch top dollar.

• If your identity is tied to your role as an entrepreneur, the thought of stepping away may feel less like a financial decision and more like a personal loss.

These personal influences are powerful, but they don’t always align with today’s financial reality—or tomorrow’s tax code. That’s where professional guidance becomes essential.

A skilled advisor can help you see where your personal script serves you, and where it might hold you back. They can:

• Balance your instincts with objective strategies that maximize tax law changes like QBI deductions, bonus depreciation, and QSBS exclusions.

• Integrate your business exit plan with your family’s needs and your long-term retirement goals.

• Help you navigate the Great Wealth Transfer by coordinating how your business and personal assets will eventually pass to the next generation.

• Create space for safe dialogue with family, ensuring your decisions reflect both financial strategy and personal values.

Because retirement planning for business owners isn’t just about running and planning or exiting a business—it’s about transitioning from one life chapter to another, with clarity and purpose.

Conclusion: Building a Plan That Outlasts Your Business

Your retirement story as a business owner is unique. It’s not just about 401(k)s or IRAs—it’s about turning years of hard work into lasting security for you, your family, and your community.

The OBBBA has created new opportunities, but also new complexities. By working with a retirement and tax professional, you can translate the law’s fine print into strategies that serve your goals.

Because just as you didn’t build your business in isolation, you won’t retire in isolation. The choices you make now will shape not only your financial future, but also the legacy your business leaves behind.

This blog builds on themes from my book, Leading in a New Retirement Era: How to Lead, Adapt, and Win in an AI-Driven World. It’s not about creating a one-size-fits-all retirement—it’s about building a plan that fits your life’s work.

Disclaimer: This material does not constitute tax, legal, investment, or accounting advice and is not intended for use by a taxpayer for the purposes of avoiding any IRS penalty. Comments on taxation are based on tax law current as of the time this article was produced.