The income statement has some limitations since it reflects accounting principles. For example, a company's depreciation expense is based on the cost of the assets it has acquired and is using in its business. The resulting depreciation expense may not be a good indicator of the economic value of the asset being used up. To illustrate this point let's assume that a company's buildings and equipment have been fully depreciated and therefore there will be no depreciation expense for those buildings and equipment on its income statement. Is zero expense a good indicator of the cost of using those buildings and equipment? Compare that situation to a company with new buildings and equipment where there will be large amounts of depreciation expense.