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No, the point is that the government depreciates business assets to reflect that they're not worth what you paid for them over time. That a business investment is meant to produce value over time and as those assets lose their productive life, their ability to produce value diminishes equally.The point is cash IS a depreciating asset. Perhaps the claims of loss would only be for individuals but I understand how that is Pandora’s box.
A farmer buys a tractor. The tractor exists to produce crops. But as the tractor ages, it's ability to produce crops decrease accordingly. So, we give the famer a tax break since his investment is losing value. However, to prevent people from front loading the investment loss, we spread it out over years. Then to account for the fact that the asset might not lose value as quickly as we presumed, we recapture depreciation if/when they sell the asset for more than the depreciated value. But the depreciation is meant to reflect that the tractor's ability to produce value is declining.
Cash doesn't work like that. First, it's not a business investment. It's personal property. We don't let people depreciate their dining room tables or even their personal vehicles. They can only depreciate their home if they use it for business purposes. Cash, for the most part, falls outside of that. Cash isn't an investment. Cash is like your couch, not your tractor.