There are two kinds of year-end in a McDonald's organization. In the first, someone spends late January reconstructing twelve months of records, a tax return gets extended, and the decisions that could have saved real money expired quietly on December 31. In the second, the close is a series of small, scheduled tasks that started in November and finished on time — and the tax planning happened while there was still time to act on it.
The difference between those two years has almost nothing to do with how good your bookkeeper is. It has to do with when you start. This article lays out the close as a three-month calendar: what to handle in November, which decisions genuinely lock on December 31, and what has to go out the door in January. Everything here is liftable — put the dates in your calendar and hand the checklists to whoever owns your books.
November is when a year-end close is either won or lost, because November is the last month in which you can still change the answer. A projection produced in November gives you six or seven weeks to act. The same projection produced in January is a history lesson.
The single most valuable thing you can do in November is get a realistic estimate of your taxable income for the year, across the whole organization, and sit down with your accountant to look at it. Everything else on the November list exists to make that estimate trustworthy.
Most of what people think of as year-end tax planning is really year-end tax timing, and the timing rules are unforgiving. Three are worth knowing precisely.
Placed in service means running, not ordered. To claim a first-year deduction on equipment, it has to be installed and ready for use in your restaurant by December 31 — not ordered, not paid for, not sitting on a loading dock. Under current law, qualifying equipment can generally be written off in full through 100% bonus depreciation, which the 2025 tax law made permanent, or Section 179 expensing of up to $2.56 million for 2026. Commercial kitchen equipment lead times can run weeks or months, which is why the November step above matters: a decision made on December 20 is usually a decision about next year's taxes.
Repairs are deductible in the year incurred. Routine repairs and maintenance are generally deductible when you incur them, so deferred maintenance you were going to do anyway may be worth completing before year-end in a profitable year. Major work that extends an asset's life may need to be capitalized instead, so flag anything significant to your accountant before you commit.
Smallwares can skip the analysis entirely. The de minimis safe harbor lets you expense items costing up to $2,500 each immediately — up to $5,000 each if your business has audited financial statements — with no depreciation schedule. It requires an annual election on your return and a matching expensing policy on your books, so confirm with your accountant that it is in place.
"A year-end close is either a decision you make in November or a scramble you survive in February."
The figures below are illustrative, not research statistics — your numbers, entity structure, and tax rate will differ, so have your accountant run your actual position. Say a three-restaurant organization projects roughly $400,000 of taxable income for the year, and the November planning meeting surfaces two decisions already on the table: a $60,000 walk-in replacement that was going to happen eventually, and $30,000 of deferred maintenance.
| Illustrative example | Decided in November | Decided December 20 |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment installed and in service by Dec 31 | Yes — ordered with lead time | No — installs in January |
| Maintenance completed before year-end | Yes — scheduled in slow weeks | Partly, at rush pricing |
| Deductions landing this year | $90,000 | $15,000 |
| Tax deferred at an illustrative 30% rate | $27,000 | $4,500 |
Same two decisions, same organization, same money spent. The only variable is when the conversation happened. Note the honest framing: most of this is timing rather than permanent savings, and accelerating deductions is not automatically the right answer — in a year where next year's income will be higher, the opposite may be true. That's precisely the judgment the November meeting exists to apply.
One change is worth flagging specifically, because it affects the January work and the reporting threshold most operators have used for years. For payments made on or after January 1, 2026, the reporting threshold for Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC increased from $600 to $2,000 under the 2025 tax law, with inflation adjustments in later years. That means fewer forms for many organizations when you file in January 2027.
Two cautions. First, the threshold change does not change the deadline or the need for documentation: you should still collect a W-9 from every contractor regardless of how much you pay them, because you won't always know in advance who crosses the line. Second, state reporting requirements don't automatically follow the federal threshold, so confirm your state's rules with your accountant rather than assuming they match.
January is execution. The work is mostly determined by how well November and December went, which is the whole argument for this article.
| A reactive year-end | A planned close |
|---|---|
| Tax conversation happens in March | Tax conversation happens in November |
| Equipment ordered in late December | Equipment in service before December 31 |
| W-9s chased in January | Vendor file current before the year closes |
| Inventory estimated from memory | Counted and signed off at December 31 |
| Return extended, position unclear until autumn | Statements done in January, filed on time |
Nothing on the December list can be done in January. That's the entire reason the calendar matters — by the time the year is over, the only thing left to do is report it.
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Read the free magazineNovember. A taxable income projection produced in November leaves six or seven weeks to act on what it shows; the same projection in January only explains what already happened. Most year-end tax planning is really timing, and timing requires runway.
January 31 — W-2s furnished to employees, and Forms 1099-NEC furnished to recipients and filed with the IRS. Confirm current-year dates with your accountant, and note that a missing W-9 is the most common reason this deadline becomes stressful.
Yes. For payments made on or after January 1, 2026, the threshold for Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC rose from $600 to $2,000 under the 2025 tax law, with later inflation adjustments. Keep collecting W-9s from all contractors regardless, and check your state's rules separately, as they don't automatically follow the federal change.
Only if it is placed in service — installed and ready for use — by December 31. Ordering and paying are not enough. With commercial kitchen lead times running weeks or months, equipment intended as a current-year deduction generally needs to be ordered well before December.
McDonald's® is a registered trademark of McDonald's Corporation. Kelly+Partners is an independent accounting and advisory firm and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by McDonald's Corporation. Dollar figures in the year-end planning example are illustrative only. Tax rules and filing dates change and depend on your circumstances — this article is general information for owner-operators, not tax, legal, or financial advice, so please speak with your advisor before acting.