Write-Down

  

Categories: Accounting, Banking

What you should be doing so you stop forgetting everything (but really though, it’ll make your life easier, so get on it).

In legal-speak, a “write-down” is an accounting term for an asset when it becomes impaired. An asset becomes impaired when its current market value is well below its historical average, or less than the value listed on the company’s balance sheet.

Think of it less as “writing something down” and more as writing that an asset has gone down in value. If a write-down is the Wicked Witch of the West, the write-up is the Good Witch of the North, which is when an increase is made to the book value of an asset.

During the financial crisis, a huge rise in write-downs on banks’ balance sheets forced them to scramble to find other capital that they needed in order to fulfill minimum capital requirements (banks legally have to have a certain amount of cash and capital on hand at any given time). Write-downs aren’t always bad, though. They lower the amount of taxable income for companies, so a write-down every once in a while is fine. It’s when they come en masse that panic ensues.

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Finance: What is a Tax Deduction?102 Views

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Finance allah shmoop shmoop What is a tax deduction Uh

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taxes Love him Hate him You can't leave him but

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you can lower them legally by being you know thoughtful

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about how you spend your earnings All right How do

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we do this Well let's start with the largest tax

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deduction in america the home mortgage And you you the

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dentist who makes one hundred fifty grand a year for

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putting your fingers in wet mouth Well remember that for

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individuals versus corporations we pay a graduated or quote progressive

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unquote tax rate Like almost nothing On the first fifteen

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grand we earned on about ten percent from fifteen to

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thirty grand And then about twenty percent from thirty to

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sixty grand And so on That's progressive So on the

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last twenty grand of earnings you make well you might

00:50

pay say forty percent in taxes and yeah we know

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the numbers own exact We're just illustrating a point Here

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you have a mortgage of three hundred thousand dollars on

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a home you bought for four hundred thousand dollars right

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So you put a hundred grand down and borrow three

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hundred The mortgage costs you six percent per year in

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interest or eighteen thousand dollars to rent that three hundred

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thousand before you owned the home The irs thought of

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you as one hundred fifty grand a year earner but

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one hundred percent of the interest on the home is

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fully tax deductible So what about that last twenty grand

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iii The money you earn from one hundred thirty k

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to one hundred fifty k Well as faras the irs

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is concerned now that you have a home you get

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taxed as if you earned just one hundred thirty two

01:35

grand not one hundred fifty k actually earned Why Because

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that eighteen thousand dollars in interest comes right off the

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top of your earnings See there's the math right there

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one hundred fifty minutes eighteen hundred thirty two taxable earnings

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it's as if you didn't earn that money ever can't

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all right well if you'd had no deductions on that

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last twenty thousand dollars of earnings you'd have paid forty

02:00

percent or eight thousand dollars in taxes But now on

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that last twenty thousand dollars thanks to your mortgage deduction

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well you only have taxable income of two thousand dollars

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And yes you pay forty percent on that two thousand

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Or eight hundred bucks And you mumbled thank you government

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for largely splitting the cost of my mortgage with me

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The american dream is alive and well that's what you

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say Okay And thank you jay There are other deductions

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beyond home mortgages of course but well you get the

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gist here of how they work from a taxpayer's perspective

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Deductions like those from your home mortgages are a good

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thing Common personal deductions also include things like prepaid healthcare

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costs and the cost of feeding quote dependent unquote children

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Aii those noisy things sleeping in your spare bedrooms until

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they're eighteen Okay so those air personal deductions things that

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individual citizens take But what if you're a corporation Well

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in a way it's kind of easier Think of most

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corporations is having a flat thirty percent tax from the

03:01

first dollar they make just keep things simple Participation trophy

03:04

company in kameda one hundred million dollars last year and

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paid thirty million in taxes They netted seventy million after

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tax The company really needs a new trophy smelting machine

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because with so much demand for participation trophies of late

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while the old one is running dullah with mediocrity the

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company spends forty million box on the new machine knowing

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that it will be worthless in ten years either because

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it wears out or because the country gets riel or

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you know simply remembers to you know have a nice

03:35

day participation trophy land Welcome to it They'd appreciate forty

03:39

million dollars in equal parts of four million box each

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year over ten years so that in the next year

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when they again or in one hundred million dollars well

03:47

they now get to deduct four million bucks and appreciation

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from their smelting machine against their hundred million dollars in

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earnings So again as faras the irs is concerned they

03:58

didn't really earn one hundred million dollars even though they

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did They earned quote on ly unquote ninety six million

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and yes they still pay their thirty percent tax Only

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now instead of paying it on a hundred million bucks

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it's paid on ninety six million of earnings or point

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three times ninety six or twenty eight point eight million

04:17

in taxes they did Abducted from their taxes The four

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million box expected value decline from their smelting machine Right

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It goes down four million a year in value from

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the forty they paid They received essentially a credit on

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their taxes of one point two million dollars So instead

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of that year's depreciation costing the company four million bucks

04:38

well it really cost them more like two point eight

04:41

million If you ignore a bunch of other things like

04:42

the original capital cost of the machine what else they

04:45

might have done with that money oven you know via

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smelting machine Think think Corporate jet Yeah those g sixes 00:04:52.774 --> [endTime] are surprisingly tasteful

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