"Depreciation expense - the IRS does not care if you take it or not during the period you should."

Actually, yes. You cannot "skip" it. I didn't assume it was never put on a tax form; I was following up with How to do it in QB, because this is a Tax Guidance forum, but a QB forum.

"How you make entries to use an expense/contra asset entry, that does not apply to current operations, when selling the asset, is beyond me"

You can put any missing info into QB, and you do so relative to what it is. If you don't Have the info, that is an entirely different consideration.

It is time to stop using a QB forum for a Tax Guidance condition.