On second thought, maybe it is like a liquor license.  Or, one newspaper story from the 70s compared it to a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.  The milk quotas were pieces of paper that were doled out for free, under a governor Reagan era socialism-for-the-rich program, allowing certain cow owners to sell their milk at an inflated price subsidized by other cow owners.  You could call it a license to steal, if you were cynical.  There was an active market in trading these entitlements.  You could probably have amortized them back then, but that would have been more like an election than a mandatory accounting practice.  If someone is selling them now, because they may become worthless if the program is discontinued, then the cost basis probably does not have to be reduced.  Nine out of ten IRS agents probably don't know which end of the cow is milked.