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Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

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Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#131

A lot of people don't know what this Section 174 is about, so here's a brief explainer. Normally, when you have expenses, you deduct them off your revenue to find your taxable profit. If you have $1 million in sales, and $900k in costs, you have $100k in profit, and the government taxes you on that profit. Section 174 says you can't do this for software engineers. If you pay a software engineer, that's not "really" a…

They are just product managers and the development is being done by AI agents.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normally, when you have expenses, you deduct them off your revenue to find your taxable profit. If you have $1 million in sales, and $900k in costs, you have $100k in profit [..] I'm not sure it's helpful to simplify quite that much, doesn't this usually depend on whether we're talking about operating expenses (typically rent, utilities, salaries, supplies) or capital expenditures (typically buildings, land, intang…

It found it helpful that it was presented that simply. The point isn’t what else is or isn’t deductible, it’s that engineering salaries went from being deductible to being amortized.

Businesses don't get to say they're claiming "$900k in costs" ... it depends on what kind of costs... EDIT: and in this instance, it depends on what kind of software engineering.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#133

A lot of people don't know what this Section 174 is about, so here's a brief explainer. Normally, when you have expenses, you deduct them off your revenue to find your taxable profit. If you have $1 million in sales, and $900k in costs, you have $100k in profit, and the government taxes you on that profit. Section 174 says you can't do this for software engineers. If you pay a software engineer, that's not "really" a…

So it applies to software engineers but under what definition of software engineer? This [1] is the only definition the code actually give. > (3) Software development > For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure. 1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/174 ----- Is a test or QA engineer c…

> under what definition of software engineer?

Probably a broad enough definition to net the US Government the greatest tax revenue possible for the effort to enact this.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#134
post #110

Can someone steelman the positives for me? I don't see how it's anything but pure regulatory capture favoring established tech firms. A small company ramping up revenue simply can't handle this amortization while a large, established company can. That being said, I do think there's a little sloppiness in what is categorized as "R&D" in the software development. Is code maintenance R&D? Bug fixes? Performance improvem…

> Can someone steelman the positives for me?

They’re literally aren’t any. Treating payroll expenses as depreciating assets is insane, and that’s why it isn’t done in any other context— not in the US or anywhere else in the world.

That sounds like a biased explanation, but it’s genuinely the truth: it was stuck in the Trump’s tax bill to help it evade budget balancing rules, but was designed to be so stupid that a future Congress would “surely” repeal it, after the TCJA had passed successfully. This sort of horse-trading happens all the time with budgets, but for whatever reason, this provision was never undone.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worse it was the better it worked as a budget fudge and it could be included in projections and allow a budget neutral bill to be passed. And by being so bad it would be easier to reverse as fewer people would defend it. There was an attempt to eat their cake and have it too.

Why is it still in place?

Republicans really want to cut taxes for rich people but they don’t want to just straight-up acknowledge a huge debt increase for that goal, so they come up with different ways to say that something is budget neutral. That’s why a lot of the 2017 bill cuts were time-limited so regular people got the tax cut immediately and would hopefully remember it, but the time limit meant that CBO wouldn’t count it as a long-term debt increase and it’d be someone else’s problem when those expired and most people notice their taxes go up.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#136
post #121

A lot of people don't know what this Section 174 is about, so here's a brief explainer. Normally, when you have expenses, you deduct them off your revenue to find your taxable profit. If you have $1 million in sales, and $900k in costs, you have $100k in profit, and the government taxes you on that profit. Section 174 says you can't do this for software engineers. If you pay a software engineer, that's not "really" a…

Why not claim them as: admins, devops, analysts, testers, technicians, managers? Probably few more. Its really about precisely software development roles? Don't we anyway do some of that other stuff regardless? But if you are correct that is supremely dumb, especially in place like US.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/174

> (3) Software development

> For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure.

Strictly speaking every single one of those jobs falls under that role. If you "develop" any software, which arguably includes even making or maintaining excel spreadsheets (as excel is a graphical array lang inspired by APL), then you seem to fall under this umbrella.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#137

A lot of people don't know what this Section 174 is about, so here's a brief explainer. Normally, when you have expenses, you deduct them off your revenue to find your taxable profit. If you have $1 million in sales, and $900k in costs, you have $100k in profit, and the government taxes you on that profit. Section 174 says you can't do this for software engineers. If you pay a software engineer, that's not "really" a…

They are just product managers and the development is being done by AI agents.

You jest, but you’ve also touched upon something interesting. Is this exactly what companies are trying to do? To the IRS: “We employ zero software engineers—only AI ranch hands to wrangle the AI in the right direction.”

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#138
post #94

Forgive me if this has already been answered in one of the other threads (I haven't been following them), but: How does this work in other countries?

It's not amortized. I.e. the company simply subtracts all salaries for the year from the revenue and pays tax from the difference. Salaries being amortized means on year 1 you can only subtract X% of salaries and the taxable amount becomes much larger. Year 2 you will use the X% for the second year salary and another Y% for the already paid salary of the first year. So, the difference becomes less, and the taxes become less, too.

For a stable company that has a constant revenue stream and an established body of workers there's no much of a difference: instead of paying all tax for current year salary you pay 6 chunks of tax for 6 different years of salaries - which would be about the same amount.

For early companies things can be pretty tough. You may earn, say 100k in a year one and pay your employee 100k. Your company now has 0 in the bank, but for the taxation purposes the taxable amount is like (100k - 10% of 100k = 90k), at 20% corporate tax that would mean that the company has 0 in the bank but owes the government $18k in taxes. It's much harder to start a software business in this kind of environment.

Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

#139
post #110

Can someone steelman the positives for me? I don't see how it's anything but pure regulatory capture favoring established tech firms. A small company ramping up revenue simply can't handle this amortization while a large, established company can. That being said, I do think there's a little sloppiness in what is categorized as "R&D" in the software development. Is code maintenance R&D? Bug fixes? Performance improvem…

The purpose, if you want to call it a positive, was to be one of many revenue increases designed to offset the cost of the income tax cuts that were the primary focus of that legislation.
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