Estimated Useful Life

Estimated Useful Life means:
the period of time over which an asset will be used by a taxpayer. In theory, depreciable assets are written off over the estimated useful life of the asset for depreciation purposes. However, more recent tax laws have used artificial recovery periods that are unrelated to the estimated useful life. For example, commercial real estate purchased in 1981 could be written off in 15 years: in 1987 the period was 3IV2 years, and in 1993, 39 years.

See Depreciation in the United States Encyclopedia of Law and Depreciation in the World Encyclopedia of Law.