What Lacerte's summary depreciation schedule leaves out

A new client's prior preparer sends over a PDF. It is a Lacerte depreciation schedule, it runs
several pages, every asset is on it, and the totals foot. It looks like a complete record.

For most of what you need, it is. For one specific thing, it is not — and the gap is invisible
unless you already know to look for it, because nothing on the page is missing, blank or marked.
The information simply was never printed.

Lacerte prints two depreciation schedules, and they are not the same document

Lacerte can produce a detailed depreciation schedule and a summary one. Both list every
asset. Both carry description, date in service, cost, method, life and current-year depreciation.

The difference is one column group. The detailed schedule separates prior depreciation into its
components:

• prior regular depreciation
• prior §179 expense
• prior special depreciation allowance (bonus)

The summary schedule does not. It prints a single Prior Depreciation figure that is the sum of
all three, and the component columns are absent from the page entirely — not zero, not blank.
Absent.

Which one lands in your inbox is a function of what the other preparer happened to click. In our
sample set of real schedules pulled from court filings, the summary variant is common enough that
treating it as the exception would be the wrong default.

Where the combined figure is fine, and where it is not

This is worth being precise about, because the problem is narrower than it first sounds and
overstating it helps nobody.

If the client sells a piece of §1245 property and you are computing ordinary-income recapture on
that sale, the recapture is measured against depreciation allowed or allowable — the total.
A combined prior figure carries that total. For that calculation, nothing is missing.

The components matter in four situations that a printed summary cannot answer:

Business use drops to 50% or less. §179(d)(10) recaptures the §179 deduction when qualified
business use falls to 50% or below before the end of the recovery period. The amount recaptured is
computed from the §179 taken. A combined figure does not tell you what that was.

State conformity. Many states decouple from federal bonus depreciation, so the state basis of
an asset differs from the federal basis by exactly the bonus taken. Reconstructing that difference
requires the bonus component on its own.

The destination software recomputes forward. When you import an asset into Drake, Lacerte or
ProConnect, the software calculates the current year from cost, method, life, convention and the
prior amounts you gave it. Fields the schedule never printed do not become zero because the import
form has a slot for them.

§1250 property. For real property, the split between straight-line and additional depreciation
drives how the gain is characterised on disposal.

Three things preparers do with the missing columns

Write zeros. The import file has a column for prior §179 and a column for prior bonus, they
are empty, and zero is the obvious thing to type. It is also a claim: it asserts the client took
no §179 and no bonus on that asset. If they did, the assertion is false, and it is false in a way
that surfaces years later on a disposal, in a return that has already been filed.

Split the combined number. Given cost, method, life and in-service date, it is possible to work
backwards toward what the bonus probably was. "Probably" is doing a lot of work in that sentence:
elections vary, §179 is allocated across assets at the taxpayer's choice, and bonus rates changed
several times across the years a schedule spans. A reconstructed number that lands in the return
looks exactly like a transcribed one.

Leave it empty and mark it. An empty field preserves the one fact you actually have, which is
that the source document did not say. It is the least satisfying option and the only one that does
not invent information.

How to tell which variant you are holding

Look at the column headers, not the totals. On the detailed schedule you will find separate columns
for prior §179 and prior special depreciation allowance, usually adjacent to prior depreciation.
On the summary there is one prior depreciation column and no siblings.

A second tell: if the schedule shows a current-year §179 or bonus column but nothing for the prior
years of the same asset, you are almost certainly looking at the summary.

Where the number actually lives

The prior preparer's copy of Lacerte still has the components — they are in the client file, not
just on the printout. Three routes exist, in descending order of how likely you are to get an
answer:

• Ask for the detailed depreciation schedule instead. It is the same client file and a different print option, which is a smaller request than it sounds.
• Ask for the Lacerte fixed-asset export rather than a PDF at all.
• Reconstruct from the prior years' Forms 4562, if the client has them. Part I and Part II of the 4562 report §179 and special depreciation allowance for the year they were claimed.

If none of those is available, the honest position is that the component is unknown, and a field
marked unknown is more useful to the next preparer than a confident zero.

What we do with it

This tool transcribes what a schedule prints. It does not compute, infer or correct.

When we detect a summary variant, prior §179 and prior bonus come back empty and are flagged as not
present in the source. That flag blocks the download until you clear it deliberately — the same
way an unreadable method or an ambiguous category does. We would rather hand you a file you have to
think about than one that silently books a zero.

The full mechanics of the Lacerte import, including the two other traps in it, are on the
Lacerte Fixed Asset Import page. If you are the one moving
off Lacerte rather than onto it, the direction does not change the job — see
switching tax software.

FAQ

Does Lacerte's summary schedule split prior bonus depreciation?

No. It prints one combined prior depreciation figure. Prior §179 and prior special depreciation
allowance appear as separate columns only on the detailed schedule.

How do I tell which Lacerte variant I have?

Check the column headers. The detailed schedule has separate columns for prior §179 and prior
special depreciation allowance; the summary has a single prior depreciation column with no
component columns beside it.

Can I enter the combined figure as prior depreciation and leave the components at zero?

The combined figure is the correct total, so entering it as prior depreciation is a transcription
of what the document says. Entering zero in the component fields is a different act: it states that
no §179 and no bonus were taken, which the document does not say either way. Whether that
distinction affects a particular return depends on facts the schedule does not contain.

Does this matter if the client never sells the asset?

The components drive recapture on disposal, the §179 recapture that follows a drop in business use,
and state basis where the state decouples from bonus. An asset held to the end of its recovery
period with steady business use in a conforming state exercises none of those. The difficulty is
that you are deciding today for a disposal that happens on someone else's watch.

Why not just work out the bonus from the cost and the in-service date?

Because the result is a computed figure presented as a transcribed one. Bonus rates changed across
the years a typical schedule spans, §179 is allocated across assets at the taxpayer's election, and
neither is recoverable from cost and date alone. A number that cannot be traced to a source
document is a number nobody downstream can check.