Rental loss carryover vs depreciation question

[Jonah S.]

Hey all,

I have been doing some learning about tax implications for owning rental properties and I had a question.

Its my understanding that you can carry over net operating losses from year to year basically indefinitely until you sell one day and can write them off of your capital gains.

I also understand that if you purchase an asset for your rental, say a refrigerator, you have the choice to either deduct the full amount for that tax year, or depreciate the refrigerator over a certain amount of years and take the deduction divided up between those years.

My question is why would it ever be advantageous to depreciate an asset rather than simply deduct it for the current year, even if you are already operating at a loss, if those losses will just carry over indefinitely?

Or am I missing something...?

Thank you!!

(Do the write offs for expenses vs assets come off of a different part of the tax calculation?)