Due to the way depreciation works, it ends up being a minimal impact. When my wife left a university job after 2 years, they sold her the laptop she'd been using for about $250. It wasn't high end, but this was about 25% of what it cost new, and 35% of what it would have cost my wife to buy a similar computer new at that time.

Being taxed on a couple hundred dollars is roughly the cost of a dinner out. It is definitely better to accept a free computer at such a discounted valuation and turn around and sell it. In no event would you come close to losing money — the taxable value of the computer would be far lower than what you could sell it for, and your tax on the taxable value would be just a fraction of that.