As a gift plus a processing fee rather than as an investment, in the amounts stated on the official programme site, with the treatment of funds on refusal or withdrawal established from official material before payment.
Tell your accountant what the transaction actually is
Because the payment is a gift, the accounting, tax and estate treatment differs from that of capital placed in a business, and an adviser told the wrong thing will plan around the wrong facts. Amounts should be read at the time from the official programme page, since figures quoted elsewhere may be stale. The most important commercial question remains what happens to the money if an application is refused, withdrawn or abandoned, and that answer must come from the government's own material rather than from anyone selling a service. Ordinary ancillary costs — legal fees, document preparation, translations — sit outside the programme's charges and are payable whatever the outcome, so they belong in the budget separately.
Hypothetical example: Elliot, a Canadian owner of a small map-printing company, is deciding whether a Gold Card payment belongs in his long-term financial plan. His first review should distinguish the applicant’s payment to the U.S. government, any stated processing charge, professional advice, travel, and family-document costs from capital invested in a business. Official payment instructions settle the destination and amount; they do not create an asset, equity, repayment right, or commercial return. He must decide whether a nonrecoverable payment is acceptable for the outcome offered. The mistake is comparing it to a conventional investment because both involve a large transfer of money.