Accelerated Deprecition Essay

Accelerated depreciation refers to any one of several methods by which a company, for 'financial accounting' and/or tax purposes, depreciates a fixed asset in such a way that the amount of depreciation taken each year is higher during the earlier years of an asset’s life. For financial accounting purposes, accelerated depreciation is generally used when an asset is expected to be much more productive during its early years, so that depreciation expense will more accurately represent how much of an asset’s usefulness is being used up each year. For tax purposes, accelerated depreciation provides a way of deferring corporate income taxes by reducing taxable income in current years, in exchange for increased taxable income in future years. This is a valuable tax incentive that encourages businesses to purchase new assets.
For financial reporting purposes, the two most popular methods of accelerated depreciation are the declining balance method and the sum-of-the-years’ digits method. For tax purposes, the allowable methods of accelerated depreciation depend on the tax law that the taxpayer is subject to. In the United States, the two currently allowable depreciation methods for tax purposes are both accelerated depreciation methods (ACRS and MACRS).
As a simple example, a company buys a generator that costs $1,000 that is expected to last for 10 years. Under the most simple form of depreciation, the company might allocate $100 of the cost of the generator to its expenses every year, until the $1000 capital expense has been "used up." Under accelerated depreciation, the company may be allowed to allocate $200 of the cost of the generator for five years.
If the company has $200 in profits per year (before consideration of the cost of the generator or any effects of debt or other factors), and the tax rate is 20%:
a) Normal depreciation: the company claims $100 in