Comment by throwawaymaths 7 days ago
yeah but a high risk venture going from zero has exactly this problem: you might fail to build your product, and crazy enough the weight of having x% tax may have made the difference.
you should be able to choose if you'd like to do immediate accounting or amortized accounting.
no, it's not wanting to be favored, it's wanting to be treated the same as any other company with expenses.
yeah read the whole thread. im arguing that R&D (im not talking about software R&D) should not be special cased as an expense class and a company should be allowed to choose to depreciate or not (just declare which).
ianal but my understanding is:
Under Section 179 of the IRS code, businesses can elect to expense the cost of a fixed asset in the year of purchase, subject to certain limits and restrictions
investors pay tax on profits, write off losses. The investors can add money in if they feel the idea is good. The tax code should not tilt the balance of the market.
people on this site complaining about lobbyists, regulatory capture etc, up and down the page, but wanting their own industry favored is a great illustration of the problems we face.