Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
alt. 1 (context accounting English) The cancellation of an item; the amount cancelled or lost 2 Something that is now worthless (such as a car after an accident) n. 1 (context accounting English) The cancellation of an item; the amount cancelled or lost 2 Something that is now worthless (such as a car after an accident) vb. (nonstandard spelling of write off English)
WordNet
n. (accounting) reduction in the book value of an asset [syn: write-down]
the act of cancelling from an account a bad debt or a worthless asset
Wikipedia
A write-off is a reduction of the recognized value of something. In accounting, this is a recognition of the reduced or zero value of an asset. In income tax statements, this is a reduction of taxable income, as a recognition of certain expenses required to produce the income.
Usage examples of "write-off".
Object-Oriented Socialism had suffered a huge debt write-off, but they continued to do well on the strength of their subsidiary interests in ergosphere mining.
Only six of the fourteen battleships were total write-offs, but damage to some of the survivors was extensive.
He'd rushed over to the theater department and liberated a costume which looked like a million bucks and had only cost a few thousand to construct, having been donated by some New Hollywood diva who'd needed a tax write-off.
Few alliances can produce such extremes of emotion or can so quickly travel from professions of the utmost bliss to that cold, terminal legal write-off, mental cruelty.
The first was from the vet saying he was 99 per cent sure Arthur had contracted navicular disease which meant he was a write-off for racing.
New fancy cars for the Red Cross, inflated salaries for the executives of the Cancer Fund, tax write-offs for Jerry Lewis.
There were other, more subtle benefits, too, involving tax write-offs and untaxable trades for existing, surplus museum stock.
Some of the shelters and write-offs we set up have been challenged by the IRS.
Mitch created two very questionable write-offs that lowered it to $320,000.
Because MITI directs policy, because we can issue write-offs in certain areas and not in others, because we can authorize sizable payouts as insurance against bad debt trade contracts, we can totally control the trading companies.
Most of the old families have given up, sold out to rich doctors and lawyers who use the orchards for tax write-offs and run them down—capped irrigation lines, no pruning or fertilizing.