3 ms·
Why?
by jncfhnb 3y ago
Why?
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoBecause the world changes.
- twodave 3y agoI think the obvious implication is that software development is expensive, ongoing and tends to result in relatively short term ROI, and therefore the amortization schedule of 5 years increases the likelihood smaller business will never collect most of it, while larger business that can absorb more up-front costs will be able to collect it pretty easily.
- jncfhnb 3y agoThat is not an argument for tax treatment of whether something is an asset
- twodave 3y agoI wasn’t trying to make that argument, but I were I would argue that software itself is more like a liability, or, at the most, a current asset[0]. Source code has no inherent value, and in fact the more you have the more expensive it is. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currentassets.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currentassets.asp
- jncfhnb 3y agoThat interpretation is deeply removed from how accounting works, but even if it were a current asset it would still not be an expense
- withinboredom 3y agoBecause most software devs don’t stick around long enough to write software that can stand the test of time. It requires a few things: like don’t use libraries unless they are well funded (includes frameworks) or have already stood the test of time (like bootstrap for the FE or React, etc); don’t hide logic deep in the code, put logic as high level as possible (like in controllers, which is the exact opposite of short-lived software; and many other little things. I have several projects running in prod, at several companies, for over a decade. They are easy to maintain, easy to extend and build on, and easy to understand.
- jncfhnb 3y agoYou can be changing the code every day and it’s still the same asset yhough