“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“
Page 303 of bill here https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr1/BILLS-119hr1eas.pdf
Original article about Section 174 tax code causing layoffs
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44180533
Post from @dang with more info about Section 174
No, and lots of controversial bills have passed other than as reconciliation bills, and especially so during trifectas where they "controversial" within the minority party but broadly supported by the majority; reconciliation is necessary to pass something that strains unity in the majority party and is uniformly opposed by (not "controversial to") the minority party, perhaps.
I wouldn't like what the current congress would do without the filibuster, but at this point a paralyzed system might be worse.
All of these except the first two were bipartisan and got 60 Senate votes (or more)
It does seem like things are trending toward less public laws passing over the last decade, as well as record low time in session and other congressional activity.
Because both parties are scared eventually the other party will be back in the majority.
By having a bunch of random provision in BBB that generate revenue it lowers it's impact on the defect and then you can repeal them later on after passing BBB.
The recent (-ly undone) change went against decades of how things were, was crippling for medium size cashflow-positive startups, effectively increased taxes, etc. But it was really just a straightforward application of the general principles that apply to most everything else.
This applied to salaries, it wasn't a capital expenditure as "capital expenditure" has traditionally been defined.
This was an operational expense.
The point is that building a piece of software that is going to be in use for several+ years is creating an asset. It just goes against our intuition since this industry is so driven by fast fashion, and the bookkeeping of specific components, their depreciation schedules, early end of life, (etc) seems like needless complexity.
You can expense such time as opex, but it has to be justified, and that's often difficult to do. Did you fix a bug by refactoring some code to avoid the problem? Is that capex or opex? Can you convince the IRS of such?
The old (and now new) rules eliminated this accounting game and uncertainty.
> Companies with capitalized domestic R&D expenses from 2022–2024 can elect a catch-up deduction, which could significantly improve cash flow for firms engaged in innovation.
At the time I dismissed it as a bureaucratic process invented by the company; after all, they had no dearth of leaders adding bureaucracy to systems for the purpose of empire-building and, to a lesser extent, asserting self-importance. However, upon reading about Section 174, it made some sense, and I wonder whether they might just get around to removing these processes.
That's fully automateable though, right? Sounds like my script to upload a PR, create a JIRA ticket with the same name, link them up, auto-Done on merge.
Seriously, that seems unlikely.
Changes like this may have an impact on employment but it’s impossible to observe the results in a vacuum.
Given that most large companies are towing the “AI means less jobs required” line, it seems likely that this will, at best, modestly slow the rate at which companies divest themselves of software developers.
I cant see any reasonable reason, in a broader context, this would have a meaningful impact.
(Yeah yeah, AI means more jobs one day maybe, but right now that is categorically not true, and the future is always pure speculation, but in the near term, the impact of this seems like it probably wont be material to me; maybe a small reduction in the number of layoffs)
This "solution" is to a problem the GOP created themselves during Trump's first term, when they made the R&D deduction stuff expire in 2022.
There is no reason to have cognitive dissonance over it.
two counteracting forces:
The senate parliamentarian decided they could be in the reconciliation bill
and outside of the reconciliation bill, believe it or not, Congress does pass other bills over the 60 senate vote threshold
This R&D one would be a decent candidate
GOP and their blind supporters are just crooks.
It comes off as spectacularly tone deaf, almost akin to hearing screams of the suffering and deliberately putting fingers in ones ears.
You shouldn’t interpret this sites focus as the people that post here not thinking there are more important things.
tareqak•4h ago
macinjosh•3h ago
Den_VR•3h ago
lazide•3h ago
tomrod•3h ago
bobmcnamara•2h ago
Weird how the depreciation schedule changes based on how the software was acquired.
n_u•3h ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44180533
more info here too
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226145
alphazard•3h ago
This fixes the problem, so now if you spend $100 on software developers, and you make $100 from the software, then you have $0 income, instead of $80 income.
tomrod•3h ago
beebmam•3h ago
Izikiel43•3h ago
beebmam•3h ago
3.5% remittance fees on sending money out of the US: https://www.globalimmigrationblog.com/2025/06/what-are-the-i...
Also (in above source), no ACA subsidies for H-1B visa holders (and others), which likely means employers they will have to pay more for health care if they want to cover their immigrant workers
tareqak•3h ago
> Expansion of Immigration Fees:
> $1,000 asylum application fee — first in U.S. history
> $1,000 fee for individuals paroled into the U.S.
> $3,500 fee for sponsors of unaccompanied children
> $5,000 fee for sponsors of unaccompanied children who fail to appear in court
> $550 fee for work permits
> $500 application fee for Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
> $400 fee to file a diversity immigrant visa application
> $250 fee to register for the Diversity Visa Lottery
> $250 visa integrity fee
> $100 year fee while asylum applications remain pending
> $100 fee for continuances granted in immigration court
> $5,000 fee for individuals ordered removed in absentia
> $1,500 fee to adjust status to lawful permanent resident (green card)
> $1,050 fee for inadmissibility waivers
> $900 fee to appeal a decision by an immigration judge
> $900 fee to appeal a decision by DHS
> $1,325 fee to appeal in practitioner disciplinary cases
> $900 fee to file motions to reopen or reconsider
> $600 application fee for suspension of deportation
> $600 application fee for cancellation of removal (permanent residents)
> $1,500 application fee for cancellation of removal (non-permanent residents)
> $30 fee for Form I-94 (arrival/departure record), up from $6
apical_dendrite•2h ago
Brybry•2h ago
The Senate made a lot of changes (Byrd rule also nuked a lot of stuff) so old articles are of limited use to the final bill.
I don't even know if [2] is the actual final text as there is neither an enrolled or public law version on congress.gov yet.
It's super annoying how often we can't read the final text of a bill before Congress votes on it.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/te...
[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/te...
unmole•1h ago
The version of the bill that passed a 1% excise is applicable "only to any remittance transfer for which the sender provides cash, a money order, a cashier’s check, or any other similar physical instrument".
throwaway7783•3h ago
Edit: Oh you mean costs in general, not in the context of section 147
lesuorac•2h ago
If you hire H-1B you should be required to pay a fee greater than it costs to educate an equivalent American. Otherwise you're always in the situation where you have to hire foreigners because no Americans are trained. (or in reality you hire foreigners because they're cheaper for the same role which this no longer makes it the case)
calvinmorrison•2h ago
Poor dudes are like ' this is my chance to make it in America' and the high caste indian management treats them like dirt.
The 'old boomers yelling at young people' is a myth in professional America compared to the absolute screaming insults you'd hear hurled at these guys.
And if they messed up? boom, gone, next guy flown in.
lukeschlather•1h ago
seany•23m ago
earth2mars•2h ago
mischanix•1h ago
loeg•1h ago