Tuesday, July 24, 2012

comprehension Depreciation Conventions

When selecting to depreciate a company asset, you need to pick both a method and a convention. A convention simply refers to figuring how much of the item basis you may depreciate the first year, based on when during that year you purchased and put the item to use in your business. This description will account for the differences in the middle of the half-year convention, the mid-quarter convention, and the mid-month convention.

2012 Tax Tables

Half-Year convention (H/Y) Under the half-year convention, your item is treated as though it was purchased and located in service at the mid-point of the first year, no matter when during that year the purchase was assuredly made. Therefore, only half of the otherwise permissible depreciation whole is able to be deducted during the first year.

The half-year convention is accepted with all depreciation and must be used unless the mid-quarter convention rules apply. (Except in the case of depreciating the company use of your home, in which case the mid-month convention applies the first year. This is explained below.) The half-year convention is built into depreciation tables found in Irs Publication 946.


Example: Using the straight-line method of depreciation (because it is easier for me to demonstrate the half-year example using S/L), Morgan is able to depreciate her office desk (seven year property), used 100% for business, over a seven year recovery period. Her basis in it (the whole she paid) is 0. She is able to take equal, 0 deductions each of the seven years. Because of the half-year convention, however, she may only deduct half of that in the first year.

Year One -

Years Two straight through Seven - 0 each year

Year Eight -

Morgan may continue to take a deduction into an additional year (year eight) beyond the desk recovery duration (seven years) in order to fully depreciate it.


Mid-Quarter convention Under the mid-quarter convention, all asset located in service during a singular quarter of the year is treated as having been acquired at the mid-point of that quarter. Depreciation tables with the mid-quarter convention built in may be found in Irs Publication 946.

The mid-quarter convention only applies if more than 40% of the combined bases of asset is located in service during the last three months of the tax year. Section 179 deductions are not included when figuring this amount.

You can avoid the mid-quarter convention in a concentrate of ways. Plan your purchases, so over 40% of the cost of them does not get spent at the end of the year, by buying early or waiting until January. You could also pick to use Section 179 to cost some of your end of the year tool purchases. Those items' bases would then not be a part of your calculation of the 40% mark.

Mid-Month convention When you depreciate the company percentage of your home office, you will use the mid-month convention in the first year. This means you may only deduct expenses beginning in the month you first began using the home for company purposes. This not only includes using mid-month depreciation tables, but it also means you may only deduct other business-related expenses for the home from that month forward.

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