That and IRS section 174.

jfactorial 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

TL;DR: recent changes in Section 174 IRC will _incentivize_ R&D spending, not cause layoffs of researchers and developers.

Section 174 allows businesses to deduct their domestic R&D expenses.

In 2017 Trump made businesses have to amortize these expenses over 5 years instead of deducting them, starting in 2022 (it is common for an administration to write laws that will only have a negative effect after they're gone). This move wrecked the R&D tax credit. Many US businesses stopped claiming R&D tax credits entirely as a result. Others had surprise tax bills.

Trump's second term work is now to undo the disaster he caused (S.O.P.). Congress has reversed the amortization rule and businesses can again deduct R&D expenses immediately.

This is a good thing rolling back a bad thing. The bad thing might have been responsible for layoffs a few years ago, but it will have only positive impact on 2025.

	▲	echelon 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		To be clear: the Section 174 changes that took effect in 2022 were disastrous and absolutely contributed to the layoffs. BBB reverses the changes for years 2025-2029 (what happens after that, who knows) and provides retroactive relief to small businesses under a certain income cap. Large businesses can accelerate amortization, but remain impacted for those years.

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Apocryphon 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And now, economic uncertainty due to tariffs

	▲	throwmeaway222 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I would say tariffs would probably account for less than 0.1% of tech layoffs. That does have some effect, but honestly, things shift so quickly. You'll more likely find that goods are going to be dumped into third countries and then make their way over. There are many hacks being deployed no one will feel tariffs for a while.