DEPRECIATION
Periodic wearing away of property over the property’s economic life. The I.R.S. requires investors and business owners to take a tax deduction on the amount of a property’s depreciation. The practice of amortizing or spreading the cost of depreciable property over a specified period of time, usually its estimated depreciable life. To put it another way, you are allowed a deduction on your income tax return for the wearing away and expensing over time of property or assets, such as aircraft, vehicles, livestock and buildings. A depreciable asset is a capital expenditure in depreciable property used in a trade or business or held for the production of income and has a definite useful life of more than one year. Non-depreciable property includes vacant land. For assets that have an expected useful life of more than one year, you spread the cost of the asset over its estimated useful life rather than deducting the entire cost in the year you place the asset in service. The tax code (law) specifies the depreciation period for specific types of assets.
