You say that in a way that gives the impression that depreciation is a permanent deduction, when it's not.
They've already missed out on it, by not having taken it to begin with. They still have to recapture and pay taxes on it, weather they took the depreciation or not. Having sold the property, fixing the past with the 3115 or anything else is just a waste of time, effort and money. That's why I say just recapture what you should have taken, pay the tax (if any) and be done with it.
I have a name for these situations, that I really don't like to use in these forums, because one can easily be offended by it. When communicating in a text based communications media such as this forum, it can be difficult for the poster to invoke the desired emotion in their response, and much easier for the reader to invoke their own opinion about what the emotion intended by the poster.
The name I use is "stupid tax", and I had that term long before Dave Ramsey was around. It's additional tax paid because the payer incorrectly "assumed" they knew better.
We all pay it at one time or another in our lives, and we pay it more than once. But so long as we don't pay it twice for the same thing, it's part of the learning process. I've probably paid more stupid tax in my time than a vast majority of others. So far, (fingers crossed) I haven't paid it for the same dumb thing I've done, twice. Will I pay some other stupid tax in the future? You can count on it. So will everyone else at some point in time.
Warren Buffet has a great story about a stupid tax he paid that was millions. To long a story to share here, and I can't find the link to the podcast where he tells it. It's a conversation between him and Bill Gates. You've probably seen it, but this was probably 10 years ago, give or take.
