An April 6, 2009 Forbes.com story featured Norman Lencz's tax tips for small business owners considering closing up shop.
Lencz's quote in the article addressed the benefit of claiming a particular type of loss for owners considering "abandoning" a business rather than selling it off in pieces. According to the article, the way a business is abandoned might trigger a tax benefit that is greater than the sum of all the pieces in liquidation.
"If you go the abandonment route, be sure to generate an 'ordinary' loss versus a 'capital' loss," said Lencz, a partner in the Baltimore office. Ordinary losses are unrestricted--meaning that you can use the entire loss to offset any other personal income (rent, salary, etc.); capital losses, on the other hand, can only be used to reduce certain sources of income, up to a limit, before being carried forward to future years.