Why should I care about these companies when they seem dead set on outsourcing my work regardless of tax codes?
Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
611–620 of 957 posts
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corporate income taxes are treated differently than personal income taxes. You absolutely can deduct corporate expenses in Canada.
I didn't mention Canada in order to nonsensically compare corporate taxes in the USA versus personal income tax in Canada, but because it's a good idea to mention where you are if you're writing about taxes. Yes, corps get all kinds of tax breaks, whereas individuals don't.
As a Canadian I still don’t understand what the point of your original comment was. We already know this thread is about a US rule.
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#613Why though?
There's no shortage of software engineers.
Something like this will fuel a over hiring boom just before AI gets good enough.
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
> maintenance activities after the taxpayer places the computer software into service This is the part that I think makes this whole jig of treating software development like a purely capitalizable expense so nuts. I previously worked at a public company that wanted software developers to treat as much work as possible as CapEx - it makes you look more profitable than you actually are, which is bad for taxes but good…
What we do is enforce that everyone keeps one ticket in JIRA as in progress and use a timekeeping add on. The tickets role up to epics and initiatives. I review each top level initiative and epic with finance and they deem it capitalizable or not. Then we add a haircut. It’s really not that much work. We have an hour meeting monthly to work it out but I make sure to exclude my mainline engineers. They don’t need that
How many engineer-hours are lost amongst the whole company each semester to report all these mindless tickets?
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#615Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has the IRS actually dinged anyone for fucking with how they categorise software expenses?
They have, but they’ve fired everyone. Literally. I have a relative who was fired while testifying in court, he ended up stranded in some flyover shithole. The real issue is the auditors will flag it.
llm auditors soon
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
> software that is built, not bought, the company building it clearly values it exactly enough to pay the salaries of the software developers building it Even in the absence of the Trump tax rule, a software company values the software they are building a lot more in financial terms than the cost of building it. Any project where value=cost should be cut, when the value is taking into account the value it brings to t…
You're advertising your rose-colored glasses strongly, my friend. In a perfect world, of course—you're correct. But hiring, project management, and resource allocation are messy endeavors, so your point only rings true under ideal circumstances. The real effect this will have on industry is a chilling effect on hiring as businesses now have to risk-mitigate because of the additional taxation burden. Further, I see th…
Not at all, this is a fundamental difference in pricing and costs. The value of an asset is its price, not its cost. When a firm sets out to buy something for X from a different firm, they value it at X. When they build something with internal resources for a cost of Y, they do not value that asset at its cost Y.
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#618[deleted]
Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#619The military is being unleashed against civilians and this is the political issue you’re concerned about on today of all days? Dang, you’re one of the bad ones.
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Re: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would strongly suspect you over-estimate the number of people on HN who voted for Trump. Also, generally speaking, calling people "dummies" isn't usually an effective way to persuade them to examine your arguments rationally/logically.
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