Understanding your depreciable basis:

Imagine you bought a property for $2M.

The land (excluding any structures) is valued at $400K.

Since land is not depreciable in the eyes of the IRS, we subtract the land value from your purchase price to get your depreciable basis.

Your depreciable basis is simply where a cost seg engineer starts from when allocating your eligible assets into either 5, 7, or 15 year property.

In the scenario above, your starting basis would be $1.6M since your basis = your purchase price - the land value.

Having an accurate land value is essential to getting your depreciation/bonus depreciation calculations right.

This is the starting point for any cost seg study that you do.