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I believe the changes have more to do with US tax laws which have made it harder for companies to write off R&D. Companies might say it’s due to AI to put an in
by janalsncm 1y ago
I believe the changes have more to do with US tax laws which have made it harder for companies to write off R&D. Companies might say it’s due to AI to put an investor-friendly spin on it.
I’m biased and it worries me that the above is also what I’d like to believe, rather it being than a permanent tightening of the screws on SWEs. We could test the hypothesis to see if the same trends happened in other countries (like Canada) who didn’t change their tax policies.
- anomaly_ 1y agoIt doesn't make it harder to "write off R&D"; it stops bullshit accounting practices by tech firms and forces them to capitalise and depreciate rather than expense stuff that is obviously capital in nature (unless you think code is ephemeral and needs to be rewritten daily).
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoThe problem is code is a lot more context sensitive than most capital expenditures. If I pay for a machine that makes really good chalk, then when my company eventually folds that machine is still probably worth a fair amount to my competitors. In contrast, the code I wrote today which probably is going to save my company ~200 man/hours a year is almost certainly completely and utterly worthless to literally anyone else, because it automates a hyperspecific piece of a company-specific workflow.
- lubujackson 1y agoThat U.S. tax law change was reversed in the BBB that just passed.
- mensetmanusman 1y agoThe big beautiful bill addressed that r&d issue.