I’d have expected you would need to demonstrate an attempt to generate income from an asset before the government would effectively give you a write off of the whole value. Anyway, thanks, hadn’t thought of it that way.
This is not a problem if you are still making a profit and not an obvious tax shelter. After all, how would the IRS know which business expenses are intended to make a profit vs investments that didn’t pan out? There is obviously room for abuse there but it is for company ownership to deal with not the government.