How to find and understand depreciation schedule from old tax returns?

The depreciation schedule would be on Form 4562 (Depreciation and Amortization) in your tax returns. For business equipment purchased in 2022, you'd have likely used either Section 179 expensing or regular MACRS depreciation over 5-7 years depending on the equipment type. For the vehicle from 2023, it would also be on Form 4562, but would follow different depreciation rules depending on vehicle weight and business use percentage. If you can't find Form 4562 in your tax return PDFs, you should be able to log into your TurboTax account and view your full return including all schedules. Look specifically for the "Business Property" or "Asset" section within your return. TurboTax also keeps track of your depreciation basis from year to year, so when you start your 2025 return, it should carry forward your prior depreciation if you use the same TurboTax account.

After struggling with exactly this issue last year, I found this awesome service called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that saved me hours of headache. I uploaded my past returns and it automatically extracted all my depreciation schedules, showing me exactly what I had claimed each year for each asset. It organized everything by purchase date, depreciation method, and remaining basis. What was really helpful is that it showed me a couple of items I had missed claiming depreciation on! I was pulling my hair out trying to piece together my depreciation history from multiple years of returns, especially since I had some Section 179 and some regular depreciation. Their system pulled everything together in one place and made it super clear what values to use for future returns.

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Have you checked Schedule C, Part III (Cost of Goods Sold)? Sometimes smaller depreciation amounts get lumped in there instead of being detailed on Form 4562. Also, if you're using TurboTax, there's a separate "Depreciation Summary" report you can generate. From your TurboTax account, go to Tax Tools → View Tax Summary → Print Center → Depreciation Summary.

Quick tip - if you can't find your old records, you can request a "Wage and Income Transcript" from the IRS which includes your filed returns. It's free and you can get it online at irs.gov/transcripts. It won't have the detailed worksheets, but shows what forms were filed.

If you're tracking multiple depreciated assets for a business, I'd strongly recommend starting a spreadsheet to track everything going forward. Include purchase date, cost, business use %, method, recovery period, Section 179 amount (if any), and depreciation taken each year. I learned this the hard way and now updating my taxes is SO much easier. You can even calculate future depreciation in advance.