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Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

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Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#61

[flagged]

Your comment is completely backwards. Chevron has nothing to do with this. This was a specific law passed by Congress and the Trump administration to make their massive tax cut for billionaires revenue neutral. The IRS is implementing the law as passed and has nothing to do with Chevron. It would be the exact same with or without Chevron because this has nothing to do with it. It’s quite telling that the anti Chevron…

[deleted]

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is difficult to fire them which is a big problem for tech companies where hiring and firing are common

I hear this a lot and it's difficult to reconcile with my experience. Every US company I've worked at (and that's always been in at-will states) has not made it easy to get rid of people. Even people with woefully bad records of losing money every year and having multiple harassment complaints filed against them were kept for nearly a decade . With one exception (I personally got fired from a tiny startup because I r…

Ive worked at a lot of different earlier stage software companies in the US and we've always fired very quickly, especially if there was harassment, but also just for low performance. Were you working at bigger companies? (aside from the tiny startup where the ceo wanted you to commit fraud) This hasn't been my experience at all.

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#63
Any accidental policy that disincentivizes R&D is stupid, but par for the course in recent history for the U.S.

Major materials innovations are discovered here, but the only nations that want to actually invest and build upon them are currently in Asia.

The argument was that the US wants to transition away from building things towards building software which is more profitable, and then this...

This is what happens when a monoculture of business/law/finance-thinking takes over political leadership.

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#64

[flagged]

Your comment is completely backwards. Chevron has nothing to do with this. This was a specific law passed by Congress and the Trump administration to make their massive tax cut for billionaires revenue neutral. The IRS is implementing the law as passed and has nothing to do with Chevron. It would be the exact same with or without Chevron because this has nothing to do with it. It’s quite telling that the anti Chevron…

[deleted]

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#65
post #58

Am I correct that if this does not get fixed, it's a huge boon for dev agencies as paying them is an immediate expense for the startup, while paying in-house devs is not?

From my reading, that would be an expense directly related to the development of the software, which also must be amortized.

What I haven't figured out is what the Dev agency has to do. They don't own the software being developed. Unless they have in-house libraries they develop...

And how does this work for open source projects that have corporate support to be developed on during company time? If you amortized the "R&D excited" of the developer's salary on the premise that the software will make long-term, recurring income, what does that mean for software that isn't being sold?

My previous job, I was the only software developer, making a tool that employees and customers in the company used together. We didn't sell the software, we sold a service completely unrelated to the software, the software was just a supplement to the service.

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#66

[flagged]

Your comment is completely backwards. Chevron has nothing to do with this. This was a specific law passed by Congress and the Trump administration to make their massive tax cut for billionaires revenue neutral. The IRS is implementing the law as passed and has nothing to do with Chevron. It would be the exact same with or without Chevron because this has nothing to do with it. It’s quite telling that the anti Chevron…

[deleted]

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#67
post #34

Sorry, Im pretty anti-tax, but this is the mature way to run a software business... I remember starting my career and presenting amortization sheets for software R&D and not a single exec giving a shit, whole industry gave up if you ask me.

Salaries being amortized never made sense

Please explain then. Because if you spend $2m on an idea, layoff half the company, pivot to a new idea, rehire. You think it's fair on the rest of us you get to write that risk off? This. Is. Why. People. Hate. Tech.

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> let go of 23 engineers employed in India >> lots of devs in Switzerland starts to make a lot more sense, especially now. This seems contradictory.

Especially since it seems like you can spread it out over 15 years, 3 times as long, if you have overseas devs. >These costs have to be capitalized and amortized over 5 years – or 15 if labor is done outside of the US. I’m not an accountant so maybe I’m reading that wrong, but if so that’s insane.

You MUST spread it over 15 years, which is brutal for most companies and will mean no longer hiring any foreign R&D or software development contractors.

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't push people to outsourcing, because the same code change requires 15 year amortization for foreign R&D expenditures.

Perhaps not as straight forward, outsourcing is generally lot cheaper.

This applies to all foreign R&D, not just where it is much cheaper… and unless it is many times less expensive, it will not be worth it. Only being able to deduct 1/15th per year is absurd.

Re: Thousands of small businesses are struggling because of R&D amortization

#70
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since it seems like you can spread it out over 15 years, 3 times as long, if you have overseas devs. >These costs have to be capitalized and amortized over 5 years – or 15 if labor is done outside of the US. I’m not an accountant so maybe I’m reading that wrong, but if so that’s insane.

You MUST spread it over 15 years, which is brutal for most companies and will mean no longer hiring any foreign R&D or software development contractors.

Why is spreading something out over 15 years harder than spreading it out over 5?
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