[bradknowles]

Maybe they were hoping to have a loss, so that they could take that on their tax returns to cover a surplus from somewhere else?

And when you started to look like you were actually going to deliver something that would generate positive returns, they had to kill it?

So, kind of like a real-life "Brewster's Millions"?

[opportune]

I'm no tax expert but I'm under the impression it's never advantageous to deliberately enter a business arrangement so that you can incur a loss for the tax offset. But, it can be advantageous to strategically realize losses that were previously paper-only.