The thing with including depreciation in the "cost" is that it doesn't actually matter to individuals. To a business, depreciation is a real thing that affects

The thing with including depreciation in the "cost" is that it doesn't actually matter to individuals. To a business, depreciation is a real thing that affects their tax return. The Canada Revenue Agency has a lot of rules around how to depreciate assets and how they affect income. I'm sure the IRS has similar rules. To a person, this is not the case. If I have a $10,000 car loan on a $20,000 car, the only things that matter are the down payment of $10,000 and the regular loan payments. If I pay the loan off over five years but the car has a 10 year useful life, those last five years are effectively free. Yes, from a pure accounting perspective I would debit the asset account for my car, credit cash for the down payment, and credit a liability account for the car loan. But in reality, that doesn't actually matter. There is no impact on my taxes by amortizing my car over 10 years vs 5 years. The only impacts are how the down payment affected my savings and how the loan payments affect my cash flow.