Wyoming Bonus Depreciation: No Income Tax, No Gross-Receipts Tax Either.
Wyoming has no personal or corporate income tax, so there is no state return to add back or deduct federal §168(k) bonus depreciation — and unlike Washington or Nevada, Wyoming has no gross-receipts business tax either. The one thing a study genuinely does not touch is Wyoming property tax, which is levied on assessed value, not federal depreciable basis.
Reviewed by Cost Seg Smart Editorial Team · Last verified against Wyoming Dept. of Revenue — divisions administered
The 30-second answer: Wyoming has no personal or corporate income tax, so there is no Wyoming return on which to add back or deduct federal bonus depreciation. Unlike Washington's B&O tax or Nevada's Commerce Tax, Wyoming also has no gross-receipts business tax — there is no second-order state business tax here for a study to fail to touch.
A note on the evidence: this rests on what the Wyoming Department of Revenue administers — Excise, Mineral, Property, and Liquor divisions, none of them income — rather than a statute that directly declares no income tax exists. That is solid evidence of absence, and we are naming it precisely rather than dressing it up as a citation it isn't.
On a representative Wyoming single-family rental (the single-family rental band we publish, 9–32% of depreciable basis reclassified, 16% representative), the reclassified components alone generate an estimated $18K–$165K of federal Year-1 depreciation. At the 37% federal top bracket, that is roughly $6,660–$61,570 of federal Year-1 tax savings — with zero effect on your county property tax assessment either way.
Federal vs Wyoming, Side by Side
For an individual investor's or Wyoming business's cost-segregation-reclassified components:
| Tax provision | Federal (IRC) | Wyoming |
|---|---|---|
| Bonus depreciation under §168(k) | 100% may apply to qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, subject to §168(k) eligibility, related-party/prior-use, binding-contract, and election rules | No state return to add it back to. No personal or corporate income tax |
| Income tax on rental or business income | Ordinary or corporate rates apply | None. No Wyoming income tax division exists to administer one |
| Gross-receipts business tax | Not applicable | None. No comparable tax to Washington B&O or Nevada Commerce Tax |
| Effect of depreciation on property tax | Not applicable | None. Wyoming property tax is levied on the assessor's assessed value, a separate calculation from federal depreciable basis |
| Federal usability of the deduction | Subject to passive activity, at-risk, basis, and business-interest limits | Same federal limits govern the federal deduction; Wyoming adds no state-level reduction |
| MACRS asset class lives | 5 / 7 / 15 / 27.5 / 39 yr per Rev. Proc. 87-56 | No Wyoming income-tax return uses them; the federal schedule stands alone |
Sources: Wyoming Department of Revenue — divisions administered, IRC §168(k). Federal bonus figures reflect current law; eligibility depends on acquisition and placed-in-service dates and elections.
How we know Wyoming has no income tax — and how confident we are
Most no-tax states in this series point to an explicit provision: a constitutional article, or a statute that names the tax and says it does not apply. Wyoming's case is different, and we want to be exact about the difference rather than blur it for a cleaner-sounding page.
The Wyoming Department of Revenue organizes its work into four divisions: Excise Tax, Mineral Tax, Property Tax, and Liquor. There is no income tax division, and no income tax form, return, or filing process exists anywhere in the state's tax administration. That is a real and meaningful absence — a state cannot quietly tax income without the administrative infrastructure to collect it — but it is evidence by omission, not a citation to a provision that affirmatively states "Wyoming imposes no income tax."
For a property owner, the practical conclusion is the same either way: there is no Wyoming income tax return to file, so the federal §168(k) bonus depreciation on a cost segregation study reaches no state add-back or subtraction. We simply think a reader deserves to know which kind of evidence a "no income tax" claim rests on, and this page will be updated if a clearer statutory statement surfaces.
Illustrative numbers: a Wyoming single-family rental
Using the single-family residential (SFR) band we publish — 9–32% of depreciable basis reclassified into 5/7/15-year property, 16% representative — on a property priced between $250,000 and $650,000, with a 20% residential land allocation, and 100% federal bonus depreciation for eligible components under current law:
| Line item | Federal | Wyoming |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase price band | $250,000–$650,000 | Same property |
| Depreciable basis (20% land allocation) | $200,000–$520,000 | No Wyoming depreciation return |
| Reclassified to 5/7/15-yr (9–32% of basis) | $18K–$165K | Not applicable |
| Marginal tax rate | Up to 37% | 0% personal or corporate income tax |
| Illustrative Year-1 federal tax savings on reclassified components | ~$6,660–$61,570 (37% × $18K–$165K) | $0 effect on the county's assessed-value property tax |
Figures are illustrative and use the site's published SFR reclassification band; your result depends on your basis, land allocation, bracket, component mix, and eligibility. Whether the full federal deduction is usable in the current year still depends on your passive-loss, at-risk, basis, and business-interest situation. Your county's property tax assessment is a separate valuation process and is not derived from, or affected by, your federal depreciation schedule.
See a sample cost segregation report
Look at exactly what your Wyoming study delivers: the component-by-component 5/7/15-year schedule, the Form 4562-ready numbers, and the documentation your CPA files. Real reports are our best answer to "is this legit?"
Forms your CPA files for a Wyoming property
For a Wyoming investor or business, the depreciation workflow is federal-only, because there is no Wyoming income tax return of any kind:
- Federal Form 4562: depreciation and amortization, including the §168(k) bonus deduction on eligible reclassified components. Flows to Schedule E (rental) or Schedule C (active business), or the applicable corporate return.
- Schedule E (or Schedule C): the accelerated federal deduction reduces federal taxable income in Year 1, subject to the federal passive-loss, at-risk, basis, and business-interest limits. There is no Wyoming equivalent.
- Form 3115 §481(a) section: included only if this is a federal lookback method change on a property placed in service in a prior year (see below).
- County property tax filing (unrelated): handled separately with the county assessor and based on assessed property value, not on federal depreciable basis. A cost segregation study neither triggers nor changes this filing.
The reclassified schedule is the same engineered output regardless of state. In Wyoming, it is used exactly once — on the federal return.
Form 3115 lookback on a Wyoming property
If the property was placed in service in a prior tax year and depreciation was reported using a non-segregated method, a federal Form 3115 (Application for Change in Accounting Method) may allow a current-year §481(a) catch-up adjustment for the accelerated depreciation you missed, generally without amending prior returns. This is often the single biggest acceleration mechanism in cost segregation. Any catch-up dollars are illustrative and depend on placed-in-service date, prior depreciation claimed, bonus eligibility, land allocation, and component mix.
In Wyoming, the lookback is a federal-only calculation: there is no state income-tax return to restate, and it has no bearing on the county's separate assessed-value property tax calculation.
See our full Form 3115 cost segregation guide for federal mechanics, partnership and LLC pass-through treatment, and timing rules.
Should you still do cost segregation in Wyoming?
Usually yes, for the federal reasons alone — and Wyoming's state-tax picture is genuinely the simplest of the three no-tax states in this series:
- The full federal Year-1 bonus is intact, with no state add-back. Wyoming has no personal or corporate income tax, so there is nothing to reduce the federal deduction at the state level. How much you use in the current year still depends on your passive-loss, at-risk, basis, and business-interest situation.
- There is no gross-receipts tax to worry about. Unlike Washington's B&O tax or Nevada's Commerce Tax, Wyoming has no comparable business tax the study could fail to reduce — the question does not even arise here.
- It will not lower your property tax bill. Your county property tax assessment is based on assessed value, a separate process from federal depreciable basis. A cost segregation study is not a property tax appeal, and the two should not be confused.
The nuance to flag with your CPA is narrower here than for Washington or Nevada, and worth stating plainly: the federal benefit is real, Wyoming adds no state income-tax friction because there genuinely isn't a Wyoming income tax to reconcile against, and the only thing to keep separate in your own head is that "cost segregation" and "property tax assessment" are two different numbers computed by two different people for two different reasons.
Frequently asked
Does Wyoming allow bonus depreciation?
The question doesn't quite apply the way it does in most states. Wyoming has no personal or corporate income tax, so there is no Wyoming income tax return on which federal §168(k) bonus depreciation could be added back, disallowed, or separately allowed. An individual investor or a Wyoming corporation claims the full federal Year-1 bonus on the federal return (100% may apply to qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, subject to §168(k) eligibility, related-party/prior-use, binding-contract, and election rules), and there is simply no parallel Wyoming income-tax calculation to reconcile it against.
How do you know Wyoming has no income tax if there's no statute that says so directly?
Fairly, and we want to be precise about this rather than overstate it. The evidence here is the Wyoming Department of Revenue's own structure: it administers four divisions — Excise Tax, Mineral Tax, Property Tax, and Liquor — and none of them is an income tax division. That is good evidence of absence: a state that taxed income would need an administrative apparatus for it, and Wyoming has none. It is not the same as pointing to a statute that affirmatively states "Wyoming has no personal or corporate income tax" the way some other states' constitutions or codes do. We are stating the distinction rather than papering over it.
Does Wyoming have a gross-receipts business tax like Washington or Nevada?
No. Wyoming has no corporate income tax and no broad-based gross-receipts business tax comparable to Washington's Business & Occupation (B&O) tax or Nevada's Commerce Tax. That makes Wyoming's state-tax picture for a cost segregation buyer simpler than either of those two states: there is no second-order business tax for the study to fail to touch, because no such tax exists at the state level.
Does a cost segregation study lower my Wyoming property tax bill?
No, and this is worth separating clearly. Wyoming property tax is levied on the county assessor's ASSESSED VALUE of the property — a valuation process entirely separate from federal income tax depreciation. A cost segregation study reallocates a property's federal depreciable basis among IRS-recognized MACRS class lives for federal income tax purposes; it does not perform, replace, or influence a county property tax assessment. Property owners sometimes assume the two are connected because both involve "how a building's value breaks down," but they are unrelated calculations serving different tax systems, and a study changing one does not change the other.
Is cost segregation still worth it in Wyoming?
For the federal deduction, yes, and Wyoming adds no state-level income-tax reduction to it, because there is no state income tax to apply it against, and no gross-receipts business tax to worry about either — the state-tax picture here is genuinely simple. The one honest caveat has nothing to do with income tax at all: your Wyoming property tax bill is set by the county assessor's valuation of the property, and a cost segregation study does not change that number. Whether the current-year federal deduction is fully usable also still depends on federal passive-activity, at-risk, basis, and business-interest limits.
Can I use Form 3115 on a Wyoming property I bought years ago?
Often, yes, at the federal level. If the property was placed in service in a prior tax year and depreciation was reported using a non-segregated method, a federal Form 3115 (Application for Change in Accounting Method) may allow a current-year §481(a) catch-up for the accelerated depreciation you missed, generally without amending prior returns. Because Wyoming has no personal or corporate income tax, there is no parallel state adjustment to reconcile; the catch-up is a federal-only calculation, and it has no effect on the county's property tax assessment either.
What does a Wyoming cost segregation study rely on for its numbers?
The study reclassifies building components into IRS-recognized MACRS class lives (5, 7, and 15-year) per Rev. Proc. 87-56, using an engineering-based methodology that follows the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide (Publication 5653). The reclassified components may then qualify for federal §168(k) bonus depreciation on the federal return (100% for qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, subject to eligibility and election rules). None of that changes because the property sits in Wyoming; what changes is that there is no Wyoming income-tax return to file it against, and the county assessor's separate property-value assessment is untouched by it. The engine ships our own calibrated, nationally-recognized construction cost data.
Related guides
- Bonus depreciation by state: overview
- All 50 states: conformity reference table
- Washington bonus depreciation (no income tax, B&O gross-receipts tax)
- Nevada bonus depreciation (no income tax, Commerce Tax over $4M revenue)
- Texas bonus depreciation (no state income tax)
- Form 3115 cost segregation lookback: §481(a) mechanics
- What is cost segregation: the full primer
- Sample cost segregation reports