alex Christodoulou's List: taxes09

• Property you own.    To claim depreciation, you usually must be the owner of the property. You are considered as owning property even if  it is subject to a debt.
• You begin to depreciate your rental property when you place it in service for the production of income. You stop depreciating  it either when you have fully recovered your cost or other basis, or when you retire it from service, whichever happens first.

• You must stop depreciating property when the total of your yearly depreciation deductions equals your cost or other basis  of your property. For this purpose, your yearly depreciation deductions include any depreciation that you were allowed to  claim, even if you did not claim it. See Basis of Depreciable Property on this page. 

   

   

   

   

   

   
• Rental property placed in service before 2008.    Continue to use the same method of figuring depreciation that you used in the past.
• This is its cost or other basis when you acquired it, adjusted for certain items occurring before you place it in service  in the rental activity.
• If you depreciate your property under MACRS, you may also have to reduce your basis by certain deductions and credits with  respect to the property.

• The basis of property you buy is usually its cost. The cost is the amount you pay for it in cash, in debt obligation, in other  property, or in services. Your cost also includes amounts you pay for: 

   
   

   
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    Sales tax charged on the purchase (but see Exception below
• Appliances, such as:
  Stoves
  Refrigerators    5 years  9 years
• Roads  15 years  20 years       Shrubbery  15 years  20 years       Fences  15 years  20 years   
• Residential rental property (buildings or structures)
  and structural components such as furnaces,
  waterpipes, venting, etc.    27.5 years  40 years

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