Seymore,
This discussion started as a tax avoidance ( not evasion
) exercise. If maximizing the deductible expense is the object then of course you want a high lease payment. The higher the lease payment for a given asset the shorter the lease term will be.
The caveat here is to take advantage of the high payments you have made because you will have built equity in the asset beyond it's market value at the expiration of the lease. You don't want to give this to the lease company, although this is exactly how profitable lease companies stay profitable and how poor ones disappear. To take advantage of the positive equity we have in the asset at lease end we want the "option" to purchase the asset at a price established at lease signing.
As you point out this could be considered a ridiculously low purchase price but if it's offered by the lessor as an option you should be able to exercise the option to buy the asset and still enjoy the accelerated expense of the high lease payments.
Previous references to first year high depreciation allowances I think are referring to a minimum capital depreciation allowance for any business that has purchased up to $50,000.00 in capitalized assets in the previous tax year. ( it used to be 50 thou, could be different now ) It allows you to write off fifty thou of new capital asset purchases every year. If you purchase more than that you have to use MACRS which has also been previously described.
If we get much deeper into this I will have to start looking this stuff up, it's been a while.
Vern