An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is an expense. Buying food, clothing, furniture, or an automobile is often referred to as an expense. An expense is a cost that is "paid" or "remitted", usually in exchange for something of value. Something that seems to cost a great deal is "expensive". Something that seems to cost little is "inexpensive". "Expenses of the table" are expenses for dining, refreshments, a feast, etc.
In accountancy, depreciation is a term that refers to two aspects of the same concept: first, an actual reduction in the fair value of an asset, such as the decrease in value of factory equipment each year as it is used and wears, and second, the allocation in accounting statements of the original cost of the assets to periods in which the assets are used.
An intangible asset is an asset that lacks physical substance. Examples are patents, copyright, franchises, goodwill, trademarks, and trade names, as well as any form of digital asset such as software. This is in contrast to physical assets and financial assets. Intangible assets are usually very difficult to value.They suffer from typical market failures of non-rivalry and non-excludability. Today, a large part of the corporate economy consists of intangible assets, reflecting the growth of information technology and organizational capital.
A tax deduction or benefit is an amount deducted from taxable income, usually based on expenses such as those incurred to produce additional income. Tax deductions are a form of tax incentives, along with exemptions and tax credits. The difference between deductions, exemptions, and credits is that deductions and exemptions both reduce taxable income, while credits reduce tax.
Capital expenditure or capital expense is the money an organization or corporate entity spends to buy, maintain, or improve its fixed assets, such as buildings, vehicles, equipment, or land. It is considered a capital expenditure when the asset is newly purchased or when money is used towards extending the useful life of an existing asset, such as repairing the roof.
The Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) is the current tax depreciation system in the United States. Under this system, the capitalized cost (basis) of tangible property is recovered over a specified life by annual deductions for depreciation. The lives are specified broadly in the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) publishes detailed tables of lives by classes of assets. The deduction for depreciation is computed under one of two methods (declining balance switching to straight line or straight line) at the election of the taxpayer, with limitations. See IRS Publication 946 for a 120-page guide to MACRS.
Section 179 of the United States Internal Revenue Code, allows a taxpayer to elect to deduct the cost of certain types of property on their income taxes as an expense, rather than requiring the cost of the property to be capitalized and depreciated. This property is generally limited to tangible, depreciable, personal property which is acquired by purchase for use in the active conduct of a trade or business. Buildings were not eligible for section 179 deductions prior to the passage of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010; however, qualified real property may be deducted now.
The United States federal government and most state governments impose an income tax. They are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. Most business expenses are deductible. Individuals may deduct certain personal expenses, including home mortgage interest, state taxes, contributions to charity, and some other items. Some deductions are subject to limits, and an Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) applies at the federal and some state levels.
Capital gains tax (CGT), in the context of the Australian taxation system, is a tax applied to the capital gain made on the disposal of any asset, with a number of specific exemptions, the most significant one being the family home. Rollover provisions apply to some disposals, one of the most significant of which are transfers to beneficiaries on death, so that the CGT is not a quasi estate tax.
Basis, as used in United States tax law, is the original cost of property, adjusted for factors such as depreciation. When a property is sold, the taxpayer pays/(saves) taxes on a capital gain/(loss) that equals the amount realized on the sale minus the sold property's basis.
Accelerated depreciation refers to any one of several methods by which a company, for 'financial accounting' 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 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.
A charitable remainder unitrust is an irrevocable trust created under the authority of the United States Internal Revenue Code § 664 ("Code"). This special, irrevocable trust has two primary characteristics: (1) Once established, the CRUT distributes a fixed percentage of the value of its assets to a non-charitable beneficiary ; and (2) At the expiration of a specified time, the remaining balance of the CRUT's assets is distributed to charity. The trustee determines the fair market value of the CRUT's assets at the time of contribution and thereafter on the applicable valuation date. The fixed annuity percentage must be at least 5% and no more than 50% of the fair market value of the assets in the corpus. The remainder must be at least 10% of the fair market value of the assets contributed to the CRUT. Code Section 664(d)(1) sets the federal income tax requirements for a charitable remainder unitrust.
Depreciation recapture is the USA Internal Revenue Service (IRS) procedure for collecting income tax on a gain realized by a taxpayer when the taxpayer disposes of an asset that had previously provided an offset to ordinary income for the taxpayer through depreciation. In other words, because the IRS allows a taxpayer to deduct the depreciation of an asset from the taxpayer's ordinary income, the taxpayer has to report any gain from the disposal of the asset as ordinary income, not as a capital gain.
Under the U.S. tax code, businesses expenditures can be deducted from the total taxable income when filing income taxes if a taxpayer can show the funds were used for business-related activities, not personal or capital expenses. Capital expenditures either create cost basis or add to a preexisting cost basis and cannot be deducted in the year the taxpayer pays or incurs the expenditure.
Treasury Regulation 1.183-2 is a Treasury Regulation in the United States, outlining the taxes owed from income deriving from non-business, non-investment activity. Expenses relating to for profit activities, such as business and investment activities, are generally tax deductible under sections 162 and 212, respectively, of the Internal Revenue Code. However, expenses relating to not for profit activities, such as hobbies, are generally not tax deductible.
INDOPCO, Inc. v. Commissioner, 503 U.S. 79 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that expenditures incurred by a target corporation in the course of a friendly takeover are nondeductible capital expenditures.
In tax law, amortization refers to the cost recovery system for intangible property. Although the theory behind cost recovery deductions of amortization is to deduct from basis in a systematic manner over an asset's estimated useful economic life so as to reflect its consumption, expiration, obsolescence or other decline in value as a result of use or the passage of time, many times a perfect match of income and deductions does not occur for policy reasons.
For taxation in the United States, the Limits on Depreciation Deduction was enacted to limit certain deductions on depreciable assets. Section 280F is a policy that makes the Internal Revenue Code more accurate by allowing a taxpayer to report their business use on an asset they may also need for some personal reasons.
UNICAP is an abbreviation for "Uniform Capitalization," a tax concept governed by United States Internal Revenue Code § 263A.
The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is a tax imposed by the United States federal government in addition to the regular income tax for certain individuals, estates, and trusts. As of tax year 2018, the AMT raises about $5.2 billion, or 0.4% of all federal income tax revenue, affecting 0.1% of taxpayers, mostly in the upper income ranges.
