Comment by hermannj314

Comment by hermannj314 8 days ago

Is lobbying for our interests how we become the bad guys?

I dont want software development to become the oil and gas industry.

More specifically, if software devs aren't creating capital assets, then what exactly is being bought during an acquisition? Don't we tell ourselves our work is building an asset that can be reused and sold. The operational aspect of our job still seems to be treated as opex.

Our entire industry is built on the belief our software is an asset. This feels like big tech wiggling for a tax break but disguised as some grass roots effort to help small tech.

I am strongly against this as the ethics feel very wrong. Our industry doesn't need tax welfare.

schroeding 8 days ago

IMO, if you lobby for a thing which does not do harm to other people, you are not the bad guy. If you do, you are. Lobbying itself is not immoral.

The oil and gas industry, and the tobacco industry et al., lobbied (and lobby) for things which they know were (and are) doing harm. This isn't the case here, IMO.

Code is not an asset in all (I would even argue most) cases - proven by companies which open source the vast majority of their code and live from service contracts or certain addons to it, and basically pay developers to commit to open source software.

Often they buy market- or mindshare. There is no way in hell e.g. Akamai wouldn't have been able to bootstrap "Linode 2". I'm unable to see the secret sauce why OpenAI couldn't have created their own VS Code fork instead of buying Windsurf. But why do that if you can acquire their existent customers / market share? Additionally, the term "acquihire" didn't plop into existence with no precedent.

Being able to immediately get a full deductible for salary, which in many (western) countries is the norm for virtually all businesses, does not strike me as particularly immoral. It's a normal office job, developers do not create gold out of thin air.

Big tech isn't even the most affected by this change, they (often) have obscene margins - small software companies do not.

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threeseed 7 days ago

> if you lobby for a thing which does not do harm to other people
The reason this is being discussed now is because of its inclusion in the Big Beautiful Bill which will kill the poorest in society by kicking millions off Medicaid and food stamps and increase the debt to unsustainable levels.
So if you support this tax cut for software developers you are the bad guy.

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- schroeding 7 days ago
  
  Ah. Thanks! Since the letter only calls it "reconciliation bill", I didn't make the connection. Not an American here, oops. Maybe creating "mega bill bundles" isn't the best idea in general. ^^'
  I still think this specific reversion / change, for itself, would be something you can lobby for, though. It itself doesn't do harm, the push to include it in this specific bill may do (if it is the thing which tips the scale for it to be accepted).
  This "tax cut" is (and was) simply the status quo in most western countries for virtually all businesses, e.g. in the EU. It itself is not immoral, as long as you see developers as normal office workers, which they IMO are.
  The existence of silicon valley giants and their faults notwithstanding.
  
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cadamsdotcom 8 days ago

While your response is valid, the specific circumstances warrant closer consideration and potentially reconsideration.

One problem with the change being appealed is software engineers have become more expensive to carry and that has contributed to layoffs. Unfortunately there appears no logical reason software activities are taxed differently than other things you might hire a skilled worker for. When one goes looking for a logical and direct motivation for the change it’s tough to find. This special tax treatment is a one-off, and engineers earn high salaries - so is it possible this change was to fund some other tax cut? The optics aren’t good, at least.

Finally and more importantly, this change impacts risky ventures & startups most of all since larger tax bills may be incurred even on failed ventures. When you look where economic growth is coming from, the lion’s share is in tech. Higher costs and layoffs discourage experimentation and discourage the development of a broad range of capability in an organization by way of carrying large teams of engineers. It thus jeopardizes the current most promising sector in the US economy. Yes, tech is also having an “are we the baddies” moment - but layoffs and higher costs for startups are a separate issue that dominates here.

If you want even further proof just look at how this is activating the HN community. Comments are through the roof. This issue warrants more than a default response.

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gregdoesit 8 days ago

You might be amused to hear that the only exception for Section 174 is software developers working at oil and gas companies!

From the legislation:

“ Section 174(c)(2) provides that the required Â§ 174 method does not apply to any expenditure paid or incurred for the purpose of ascertaining the existence, location, extent, or quality of any deposit of ore or other mineral (including oil and gas).”

Is there an explanation how software developers creating software for oil and gas companies are different than for any other industry?

Or can we assume that the oil and gas industry managed to (yet again!) have its lobbyists where it mattered?

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