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…
Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
131–140 of 957 posts
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#132Earlier 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.
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#133A 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…
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)
#134Can 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…
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)
#135Earlier 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?
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#136A 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.
> (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)
#137A 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)
#138Forgive 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?
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)
#139Can 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…
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#140Dang, you’re one of the bad ones.