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Irs useful life of carpet.
Depreciation is the recovery of the cost of the property over a number of years.
Since these floors are considered to be a part of your rental property they have the same useful life as your rental property.
Beyond that distinction depreciating carpeting is the same as depreciating a new appliance see the more detailed appliance depreciation article above.
The american appraisal associates established the useful life of property and equipment categories as of september 30 1999.
Whether it is carpet a stove mini blinds or a hardwood floor all items have an estimated life expectancy.
If the carpet is glued down perhaps in a basement then it becomes attached to the property and must be depreciated over 27 5 years.
Useful life of more than 4 but less than 10 years that is 5 9 years.
Repairing is the key to your tax treatment replacing destroyed appliances carpet and linoleum are an asset and depreciated 5 years.
Since the carpet is tacked down the most common.
Instead you generally must depreciate such property.
As such the irs requires you to depreciate them over a 27 5 year.
You generally can t deduct in one year the entire cost of property you acquired produced or improved and placed in service for use either in your trade or business or to produce income if the property is a capital expenditure.
If the item is well past it s life expectancy it would not be fair to award the landlord the full replacement cost because to do so would put the landlord in a better position than s he was in prior to the item being damaged by the tenant.
If you have a tax question not an swered by this publication or how to get tax help sec tion at the end of this publication go to the irs interactive tax assistant page at irs gov help ita where you can find topics using the search feature or by viewing the cate gories listed.
The macrs asset life table is derived from revenue procedure 87 56 1987 2 cb 674.
The table specifies asset lives for property subject to depreciation under the general depreciation system provided in section 168 a of the irc or the alternative depreciation system provided in section 168 g.
Thus the irs does not think that all residential rental carpets only lasts five years but the irs does think that most such carpets last between five and nine years based on a study of carpets by the irs.