No. When the Company has to dispose some of the fixed assets.
note the entry of PP&E disposal
Dr: Accumulated depreciation
Dr: Monetary assets received
Cr: PP&E cost
Cr: Non-operating income or expenses-plug

So, the closing accumulated depreciation in B/S equals:
Opening accumulated depreciation in B/S+depreciation expenses incurred(P/L for this period)-Accumulated depreciation write-off due to disposal.

TWAPILOT wrote: yes, but isn't the opening acc dep the sum of all of the prior dep expenses? sort of like when you close other comprehensive income into accumulated oci and then you take it out again when the available-for-sale security is sold? in the formula, you are summing up all of the dep (acc dep + dep exp for the period) and then subtracting out the acc dep piece that is associated with the equipment sold.

Accumualted Depreciation is the total expense of what was depreciated as long as there are no disposals. If you have disposals then it would not equal the total expense of what was depreciated. For example, let's say you have a depreciable asset that cost 50K and it's being depreciated Straight Line for 5 years with no salvage value. Then the asset was disposed of some time after the asset was disposed of. The entries and Balance sheet would be as follows:

Entries
Depreciable Asset	50000
Cash		50000
To record Acquisition of Depreciable Asset
Deprec Exp	50,000
Accum Dep		50,000
To record Depreciation Exp
Accum Dep	50,000
Depreciable Asset		50,000
To record Disposal (assuming no cash & gain or loss for simplicity sake) :)
Balance Sheet (Before Disposal)
Asset	50,000
A/D	(50,000)
Net BV	0

As you will see in my previous post there will no longer be a balance in the Accumualated Depreciation and the Depreciable Asset account due to the disposal of the fully depreciated asset. Upon further aquisitions you will obviously do the same entries as noted above; however, notice that the Depreciation Expense account remains in tact. If you were to compare the Depreciation Expense account to the Accumualted Depreciation account they would not equal as per my explanation above.

Balance Sheet (After Disposal)
Asset	0
A/D	0
Net BV	0

Understand it now?