MACRS Depreciation Calculator (US)

IRS Pub. 946 lists class lives: 5-year covers computers, office equipment, cars and light trucks; 7-year covers most machinery, equipment, furniture and fixtures; 3-year some tooling and software-related assets; 15-year land improvements and certain installations; 27.5-year residential rental and 39-year commercial real property use straight-line (not these accelerated tables). Match your asset to its class before depreciating.

The half-year convention. MACRS assumes assets are placed in service (and disposed of) at the midpoint of the year, so a 5-year asset gets only half a year of depreciation in year one — and the remaining half-year spills into a sixth tax year. (A mid-quarter convention applies instead if more than 40% of the year's assets were placed in service in the last quarter.)

No — MACRS ignores salvage value entirely and depreciates the asset's full basis down to zero over the recovery period. This is a key difference from book methods like straight-line and SYD, which stop at salvage. It's one reason book and tax depreciation differ and require reconciliation.

They come first. You can elect Section 179 to expense qualifying assets up front (subject to annual limits and phase-outs), then bonus depreciation on the remaining basis, and MACRS depreciates whatever is left over the recovery period. The order is Section 179 → bonus → MACRS. Our Section 179 calculator models that first-year stacking; this one runs the MACRS schedule on the basis.