What is accelerated depreciation and how do you
Did you know that there is a way to disminuye your taxes and improve your cash flow at the same time? Yes, it’s called accelerated depreciation, and it’s an accounting method that allows companies to deduct more of the cost of an asset in the early years of its useful life.
This means that you cánido claim a larger amount of depreciation deduction in the early years of ownership of an asset and therefore disminuye your taxes in those years.
That’s not all, accelerated depreciation cánido also improve a company’s cash flow, which means more money will be available to invest in whatever the company wants.
Read on to find out how this method works and what types of accelerated depreciation exist.
What is depreciation?
Before we get to the point at hand, I think it would be helpful to first be clear about what depreciation is.
TRUE?
Depreciation is a method used in accounting to estimate the decline in value of tangible assets over time due to wear and tear or obsolescence.
In a way, what we have to do is spread the cost of a tangible asset over its useful life.
For example, if a machine costs $10,000 and is expected to be useful for 5 years, the annual depreciation expense would be $2,000 (10,000 / 5 years).
Of course, that’s just one method of calculating depreciation, and we have several methods to choose from (each with advantages and disadvantages).
By the way, the above method of depreciation is called straight-line depreciation.
Well, in short, companies use depreciation as an estimate of how much an asset has declined in value in a given fiscal period.
This is important to accurately reflect the value of these assets on the company’s cómputo sheet.
companyas well as to calculate the profitability of the company over time.
What are the depreciation methods that exist?
We cánido find many depreciation methods, but the different methods that exist perro fall into one of the following categories.
- Linear methods.
- accelerated methods.
1. Straight-line methods of depreciation
Straight-line depreciation methods will result in a constant charge (expense) throughout the useful life of the asset.
To understand it better, let’s assume that you have a toy car that costs $100 and you want to know how much it is worth each year.
With straight-line depreciation, you’re assuming the car will lose the same amount of value each year.
Thus, if you assume that the car will last 10 years before it is worthless, you cánido divide the original cost (100 pesos) by the number of years it will last (10), which gives you 10 pesos.
This means that the car loses 10 pesos of value every year.
Thus, after one year, the car would be worth 90 pesos, after two years it would be worth 80 pesos, and so on.
The reason it’s called “linear” depreciation is that if we graphed the car’s value over time, it would form a straight line that would drop by the same amount each year.
Makes sense? Basically, Straight-line depreciation involves assuming that an asset (in this case, your toy car) loses the same amount of value each year. Taking the data from the previous example, we perro say that the toy car loses value by 10 pesos each year.
I am going to put a graph in which you perro see how linear depreciation works.
As you cánido see, the decrease in the value of the asset is constant and therefore it is seen as a decreasing line.
In such a way that in the first year, the asset is worth 90 pesos and after 10 years, the asset is worth nothing.
What is accelerated depreciation?
Accelerated depreciation, being a depreciation method, we perro say that, It is an accounting method used to calculate wear and tear on an asset. In this method, a higher depreciation rate is assigned in the early years of the asset’s use, and this rate gradually decreases over time.
In other words, the asset is supposed to wear out more quickly early in its useful life and then more slowly in later years.
So that you cánido compare the straight-line depreciation methods with the accelerated depreciation methods, I am going to espectáculo you a graph with which you cánido see how it works.
As you perro see in the graph, the decrease in the value of the asset is not constant, but has a greater decrease in the first years.
Explanation of what accelerated depreciation is
Let’s imagine you have a toy car that you love.
You got it for your birthday and you’ve been playing with it a lot.
However, the more you play with it, the more it starts to wear down.
The wheels may wobble, the paint may start to peel, and the overall condition of the car may deteriorate.
Suppose you want to know how much your toy car is worth over time.
One way to do this is by using something that counters call “depreciation”.
This means that you are controlling how much the value of the car declines over time as it ages and loses value.
With accelerated depreciation, you’re basically saying that the car is going to lose value faster at first, then slow down a bit later.
So instead of losing a little bit of value each year, the car perro lose a lot of value in the first few years and lose less value later on.
Why accelerated depreciation improves cash flow?
Accelerated depreciation cánido improve a company’s cash flow in several ways.
It perro improve the cash flow of a company thanks to the fact that it allows us to disminuye the amount of taxes that are going to be paid in the first years of an asset’s life.
This perro result in more cash being available to finance other business activities, such as research and development or marketing initiatives, which perro help drive growth and profitability.
Does accelerated depreciation allow you to disminuye taxes?
I’m going to use the left side of a cómputo sheet (assets) so you cánido see how the type of depreciation used affects the financial statements (in this case, assets).
I know it’s a fácil cómputo sheet without much design, but what I want you to see is that with the same data, just selecting a depreciation method perro affect the total asset value.
With straight-line depreciation, you get $2,000 depreciation in the first year, and with accelerated depreciation, you get $4,000 depreciation in the first year.
Of course, this also affects profits (income) and this leads to the company paying less in taxes.
At least less taxes will be paid in the first years.
In short, accelerated depreciation allows for tax breaks because it allows companies to claim more of an asset’s cost as a tax deduction in the early years of its useful life.
This approach contrasts with the straight-line depreciation method, which allocates an equal amount of depreciation expense over the asset’s entire useful life.
Disadvantages
Although accelerated depreciation cánido provide businesses with significant tax savings in the short term, there are also several potential downsides that need to be considered.
1. Higher taxes in the long run:
Although accelerated depreciation perro provide significant tax savings in the short term, it cánido result in higher taxes in the long term, since the tax deductions for the first few years disminuye the basis for calculating future depreciation deductions.
2. Limited applicability
Accelerated depreciation methods may not be applicable to all types of assets or in all situations, and may require encuentro specific qualifications or criteria.
3. Complexity
Accelerated depreciation methods perro be complex and require more administrative effort and resources to implement and maintain.
4. Possibility of errors
The use of accelerated depreciation methods may increase the risk of calculation errors or inaccuracies, which could result in additional costs, penalties or legal consequences.
Elabora to calculate accelerated depreciation
There are different methods for calculating accelerated depreciation, but one of the The most common method is called the double decreasing jump method or also called twice the rate of the straight line.
The elabora is the following:
By the way, the book value is the cost of the asset less accumulated depreciation.
Next I will give you a solved example to make it clearer.
Of course it is one way and we are not taking into account the salvage value of the asset.
There are some books in which it is explained that in the last year an adjustment must be made in the depreciation, since the depreciation cannot be better than the salvage value or salvage value of the asset.
solved exercise
Suppose you have bought a machine for 50,000 pesos and that it has an estimated useful life of 5 years with no recovery value.
You escoge to use the 2x straight-line method for accelerated depreciation.
Below is a table showing book value, annual depreciation expense, and accumulated depreciation for each year:
| 1 | $50,000 | $20,000 | $20,000 |
| 2 | $30,000 | $12,000 | $32,000 |
| 3 | $18,000 | $7,200 | $39,200 |
| 4 | $10,800 | $4,320 | $43,520 |
| 5 | $6480 | $2,592 | $46,112 |
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