Guides
Notes from the schedule.
What a prior preparer's depreciation schedule actually prints, what each destination's import format demands of it, and where the two disagree. Written for preparers doing the migration, not for search engines.
-
Latest
The de minimis safe harbor, and why the schedule is not a list of what the client owns
A new client's depreciation schedule lists 60 assets. The general ledger, the insurance rider and a walk through the premises all suggest rather more equipme...
Read → -
Accumulated depreciation, and the column header that gets it read as this year's
Two figures on a depreciation schedule describe the same asset and are not remotely the same number. One is what the asset has depreciated since it was place...
Read → -
What a cost segregation study hands back, and what has to happen to it next
The study comes back. It is a bound report, often over a hundred pages, with photographs, statutory citations, an engineer's methodology section and — somewh...
Read → -
MACRS recovery periods, and why the same asset can carry two different lives
On a printed depreciation schedule the recovery period is a bare number in a narrow column. 5.0. 7.0. 39.0. No explanation of where it came from, and none av...
Read → -
What MACRS depreciation is, and what the acronym leaves unsaid
The acronym is on every depreciation schedule printed in the United States and almost never spelled out on any of them. It appears as a column heading, or co...
Read → -
Section 1250 recapture is usually zero, and the depreciation history still decides the tax
A rental building is sold. Someone looks up §1250, finds that recapture applies to depreciation in excess of straight line, notes that MACRS depreciates real...
Read → -
Reading a MACRS depreciation schedule
Search for a MACRS depreciation schedule and you get two entirely different documents, both correctly named. One is a set of percentage tables published by t...
Read → -
Form 4562, line by line — and the things it cannot tell you
You have a new client's prior-year return and, behind it, a depreciation schedule from the previous preparer. The plan is to reconcile one against the other ...
Read → -
What GruntWorx and SurePrep automate, and where a depreciation schedule falls outside it
A firm that has already bought document automation asks a reasonable question when a new client arrives: we run GruntWorx, or we run SurePrep — does it handl...
Read → -
Moving depreciation out of UltraTax CS when all you have is the printout
Ask around about moving depreciation off UltraTax CS and you will be told, confidently and often, that it cannot be done — that fixed asset data does not con...
Read → -
What Lacerte's summary depreciation schedule leaves out
A new client's prior preparer sends over a PDF. It is a Lacerte depreciation schedule, it runs several pages, every asset is on it, and the totals foot. It l...
Read →
Have a schedule to move?
The totals tie or you don't pay. First conversion free.