Can you depreciate assets differently between Federal, State, and Local?
In general, you most definitely can. In some cases you must. However for each State you'll have to check whether you can choose how to depreciate. Many States require you to take the same depreciation as on the Federal schedule, including Sec. 179, others won't allow Sec. 179 at all. Specifically to PA, I haven't found any current guidance, but the rules from 2012 put PA in the bucket that requires you to take the same Sec. 179 on the State return as appears on your Federal return. If you elect to expense Section 179 Property for FIT purposes, you are   required to expense the property for PIT purposes. However PA limit for Sec. 179 is $25K, so if your Federal deduction is larger - you can depreciate the rest. Check with a PA-licensed CPA or EA for a more reliable opinion, since I'm not a tax adviser. Just googled it.
"My opinion: including the value of depreciating property one owns in a net worth calculation is silly - but could be interesting You don't expect your TV or laptop to gain value.  Instead, you expect them to decrease in value every year until you replace them.  Anything you expect to hold or increase in value (art, a house, etc) is a different story. If you'd like to really get anal about this, you can track your net worth like a business would track its balance sheet.  I'm not going to go into detail, but the general idea is that when you purchase an item, you debit the cost from ""cash"" and add the value paid to ""assets"" (so your net worth doesn't change when you make a purchase).   You then depreciate the value of the item under ""assets"" according to a depreciation schedule.  If you plan on replacing your laptop every three years, you might subtract 33% of the value every year.   This could be an interesting exercise (i.e. even if you make money, your net worth may decrease because of all the depreciating junk you own), but my hunch is that it wouldn't be worth the effort it requires." Getting the first year right for any rental property is key. It is even more complex when you rent a room, or rent via a service like AirBnB. Get professional tax advice. For you the IRS rules are covered in Tax Topic 415 Renting Residential and Vacation Property and IRS pub 527 Residential Rental Property There is a special rule if you use a dwelling unit as a personal   residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days. In this case, do not   report any of the rental income and do not deduct any expenses as   rental expenses. If you reach that reporting threshold the IRS will now expect you to to have to report the income, and address the items such as depreciation. When you go to sell the house you will again have to address depreciation. All of this adds complexity to your tax situation. The best advice is to make sure that in a tax year you don't cross that threshold. When you have a house that is part personal residence, and part rental property some parts of the tax code become complex. You will have to divide all the expenses (mortgage, property tax, insurance) and split it between the two uses. You will also have to take that rental portion of the property and depreciation it. You will need to determine the value of the property before the split and then determine the value of the rental portion at the time of the split. From then on, you will follow the IRS regulations for depreciation of the rental portion until you either convert it back to non-rental or sell the property.  When the property is sold the portion of the sales price will be associated with the rental property, and you will need to determine if the rental property is sold for a profit or a loss. You will also have to recapture the depreciation. It is possible that one portion of the property could show a loss, and the other part of the property a gain depending on house prices over the decades. You can expect that AirBnB will collect tax info and send it to the IRS As a US company, we’re required by US law to collect taxpayer   information from hosts who appear to have US-sourced income. Virginia will piggyback onto the IRS rules. Local law must be researched because they may limit what type of rentals are allowed. Local law could be state, or county/city/town. Even zoning regulations could apply. Also check any documents from your Home Owners Association, they may address running a business or renting a property.  You may need to adjust your insurance policy regarding having tenants. You may also want to look at insurance to protect you if a renter is injured. "To receive unemployment benefits, you must be registered with an employment agency and be actively seeking work, and be willing to accept work should it be offered to you. As a full-time Cornell University student, as you describe yourself, this does not seem a likely scenario. Also, you need to have established a state of residence. It is not clear to me that you have done so, given your travel between the South Pacific, Ithaca, New York, North Carolina etc. You should check with your local state unemployment office in New York State, or perhaps North Carolina, although I don't know if you satisfy residency requirements in either state. They will be able to confirm however. Are your parents claiming you as a dependent on their federal income taxes? If so, I do not believe that you will be able to file for unemployment benefits, regardless of your student status at Cornell University.  One more issue to consider: Have you filed tax returns for the income you received from your television production work? I am uncertain of the amount, as you said that you worked for two 4-month intervals making $10,000. That implies $20,000 of earnings over two years. Yet your bullet point number 7 states that you made ""10 grand each of the four months"". If that means that you made $10,000 per month for four months, then you earned $40,000 per summer, for a total of $80,000 for two summer's worth of work. I don't think unemployment benefits are intended for individuals in your situation." Owing taxes to two or more levels of government isn't double taxation. It's a feature of the American union. I'm not for this bill in general, mostly for the timing and the loss of the highest bracket, but both the state and federal governments have to generate revenue, and basing rates on pure incomes with a few loopholes as possible is the most progressive way to do it. By owing taxes unadjusted for other taxes paid, there's more incentive for states to lower local taxes and to balance state programs with federal programs, and for state reps to more fairly redistribute federal transfers instead of targeting states with (usually artificially) low local taxes and fewer state programs (usually Republican). You have two different operations going on: They each have of a set of rules regarding amounts, timelines, taxes, and penalties. The excess money can't be recharacterized except during a specific window of time.  I would see a tax professional to work through all the details. Straight line in this example should be just the $2MM per year.  I don't think the author of the problem intended you to use anything in the actual tax code like MACRS.  I think the goal of the problem is to get you to identify the value of the depreciation tax shield and how the depreciation does affect your cash flow by reducing your taxes, even though depreciation itself is not a cash event. "In theory, the idea is that diversified assets will perform differently in different circumstances, spreading your risk around. Whether that still functions in practice is a decent question, as the ""truth"" of most probability based arguments for diversification rely on the different assets being at least somewhat uncorrelated. This article suggests that might not be true. Specifically: The correlations we note among industry sectors are profoundly and dysfunctionally high. and  Gold and silver traders have gotten too used to the negative correlation trade with stocks. This is, in fact, an unusual relationship for precious metals tostocks. The correlation should actually be zero." I cannot imagine an organizer being worth enough to consider depreciating the expense over a period of time greater than one year. Also, once you write in an organizer, it's pretty much worthless to anyone else. Talk to your accountant if you'd like, but I cannot see how you would classify a fancy organizer as a fixed asset.