Agreed. I think the parent is confusing it with the case where you buy an item for your business, depreciate it to zero (thus deducting its full value as an exp

Agreed. I think the parent is confusing it with the case where you buy an item for your business, depreciate it to zero (thus deducting its full value as an expense), and then later find out you can salvage some value on resale. In that case, you would have reportable/taxable income from that resale, which you can think of as “correcting the overdeduction for depreciation.”