Interesting. There's alot of discussion about endusers as developers- the ppc empires and company sites- but the silent, big league investor/speculator doesn't come up very often. Hmm... It would seem that domain name investing would provide fertile grounds for some creative accounting. Unlike stocks, real estate, collectibles and other assets that are more tangible, domain name values don't have a very solid basis for making comparisons, so pinning down the current value of the asset could be a bit allusive. The initial purchase, the cost to create and maintain a website, domain management, and any salaries that that are attached would show as expenses and, as you've mentioned, it's doubtful that many of these are actually paying for themselves in ppc or in many cases, as operating websites, for that matter. There's no dividend income or measurable appreciation, as there would be w/ stocks, for instance, and in the meantime, an investor could reinvest profits from other sources- income that would be taxable if not put back to work- into high end domain names that could havegreat profit potential when sold. Of course, when sold, the money would be subject to capital gains tax but, most of us wouldn't mind living w/ a tax on a domain name that we bought for $50K today that sold for $500K 10 years from now. In the event that the domain name market took a dive or the name investment sold at a loss, than, the loss would be used to offset taxes from profits that, presumably, were being made in another area.
I'm not an accountant and some of the above could be a little rough around the edges but it is safe to assume that domain names do offer some unique investment benefits from the big investor's standpoint.
