You have to think of it how it relates to the financial statement income and not how it relates to the income tax return. The thinking being that if tax laws were changed and based only off the financial statement what would happen. In this particular case, they have a much lower liability than on their tax return, and so an asset.
It creates an asset now in the financial statement, the lower tax amount as per the financial statement vs the tax return; not that there will be future liability on the tax return, and that asset is deferred because for tax purposes they are not taking as much depreciation in the financial statement.
As someone who deals with a lot more cash and tax basis clients in my day to day, I too struggled with the concept. It still doesn't quite make sense to me. I also just tried to remember that greater expense for tax purposes, meant deferred tax liability and then from there could figure out how each question related to that. It being better to know how to get through such questions than understand the sometimes convoluted thinking of the FASB.
Also remember that the current/non-current status of a deferred tax asset/liability is tied to the underlying asset, liability, or expense. Which I believe is more of what this question is relating to. It is essentially asking should the DTA be current or non-current based on the underlying transaction in year 1 and 14. In year 1 there is both a current and non-current portion, in year 14 there will only be a current.
.