[s1artibartfast]

>but that's not the same thing as claiming the resulting loss as a deduction on your income tax

which you can also do. If you knock down your house, then sell it, you will have a pretty heafty capital loss, which you can then use as a income deduction for up to 8 years, or until it runs out.

[lisper]

> then sell it

Yes, but you have to sell it, at which point it's a capital loss. And you can sell the movie and take a loss that way as well (assuming you actually sell it at a loss).

What you cannot do is delete the movie and then claim it as a capital loss -- because you haven't sold it.

[s1artibartfast]

If you kock down your house, you literally cant sell it. Also, there are multiple ways of changing asset value besides sale.

[lisper]

If you really want to get technical about it, in the vast majority of legal jurisdictions it is not possible to sell a house in isolation. You sell the land that the house is sitting on, and the house just comes along for the ride as an "improvement". So whatever legal abstraction you could sell before you tore the house down you can also sell after.