Catch Up Calculator
Own a building placed in service in an earlier year? Estimate the catch up a study could support in the year of change. Your CPA chooses how it reaches the return.
Estimate Your Catch Up
Tell the engine when you bought, what you paid and what kind of property it is. It models the study, replays the years already filed and returns the §481(a) adjustment your CPA would claim.
Choose the year and the month the property was placed in service to see the catch up.
Planning figures from our estimate engine, never a guarantee. Prior returns are assumed to have depreciated the whole building straight line from the month you choose. The bonus rate follows the acquisition date, which the calculator assumes is the first of that same month. Under a written binding contract the acquisition date can differ from the closing date, and property acquired on or before January 19, 2025, or in 2017 before September 28, takes a different rate. The study's used property screen is not applied here; if your filed schedule or your facts differ, the catch up changes. We do not prepare tax returns or provide legal advice; your CPA decides how the catch up reaches the return. Questions about your own numbers? Contact us.
How much of the catch up deduction you can use in the year depends on your tax situation, including the passive activity rules, and your CPA decides. What a passive activity is
How a Catch Up Reaches the Return
The rules behind the route the calculator shows, each checked against its primary source.
- Changing the depreciation method, period of recovery or convention of an asset for which a method has been adopted is a change in method of accounting. It therefore generally requires Form 3115 rather than an amended return. Before a method is adopted, an amended return can correct the depreciation. Source: Treas. Reg. section 1.446-1(e)(2)(ii)(d)(2)(i); IRS Publication 946 (2025), chapter 1
- The automatic change from an impermissible to a permissible method of accounting for depreciation is in section 6.01 of Rev. Proc. 2025-23, and its designated automatic accounting method change number is 7. It applies to property the taxpayer owns at the beginning of the year of change and for which the impermissible method was used in at least two tax years immediately before the year of change, with a special rule for property placed in service in the immediately preceding year. Section 6.01 also lists property it does not cover, and property disposed of before the year of change is handled in section 6.07. Source: Rev. Proc. 2025-23, 2025-24 I.R.B. 1476, sections 6.01(1), 6.01(9) and 6.07
- For an automatic change the original Form 3115 is attached to the timely filed federal income tax return (including extensions) for the year of change, and a signed copy is filed with the IRS no later than the date the original is filed. The IRS does not send acknowledgements for automatic change requests. The current Form 3115 instructions are the December 2022 revision. Source: Instructions for Form 3115 (Rev. 12/2022), When and Where To File; Rev. Proc. 2015-13 section 6.03(1)
- Generally, a taxpayer adopts a depreciation method by using a permissible method on the first return or by using the same impermissible method on two or more consecutively filed returns. Once a method is adopted, the IRS guide says it cannot be changed by amended return unless specific guidance allows an exemption. Source: IRS Publication 946 (2025), chapter 1, Adoption of accounting method defined; IRS Publication 5653 (Rev. 2-2025), chapter 6, part B.6, paragraph (2)
The rules on this page were checked against their sources on October 1, 2026.
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