There are businesses that value companies for purposes such as estate tax. It is not as simple as simply looking at the book value. Google “discounted cash flow analysis” to get a rough idea on how this can work.
For an “ELI5” answer, the company will be valued based on its assets and debts, in addition to giving consideration to how profitable the company is expected to be in the coming years.
In the US private companies are assessed for the total value of their assets. The land, the building, every single peice of equpiment and furniture has a value assigned to it and they are taxes for it all. The longer that they have had the equipment the less taxes they pay on it, but for companies which have to stay up-to-date with their equipment that can be an issue.
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