I'm sure it will get fixed eventually/soon, just annoying to update and have your workflow break.
1,249 karma · joined October 29, 2008
rgd@hey.com
I'm sure it will get fixed eventually/soon, just annoying to update and have your workflow break.
It was probably 3x faster than usual. I got more done in the next hour with it than I do in half a day usually. It was definitely a bit of a glimpse into a potential future of “what if these things weren’t resource constrained and could just fly”.
Of course, we all know that this is very rarely how projects end up getting setup especially in the early stages, and then it's just massive amounts of work to go back and set it up later.
The thing that's the most intriguing to me about what you're describing is automatically setting up translations in the build step where you auto-detect strings to translate. But looking at the site, most of it seems to be focused around the VSCode extension which will just sort of find and replace strings in the source code with t() tags.
Can you talk more about the translations in the build step? Is there a reason you're not talking more about that on the site? (Is it just newer, not very reliable/good, or...)?
The idea that I could just throw something like this into my project, not have t() tags in my source code but still get translations, sounds like magic and I think it would be really neat.
Thank you for sharing your own experience with your CPA as well.
I mean that sounds great to me...I just also feel like it's probably a very "liberal" interpretation indeed.
The part I'm getting hung up on is essentially, previously R&E expenses (as you note) were a lot more fungible, it depended on a number of factors including how risky the endeavor was. Things that you just do day-to-day in the service of keeping your company afloat (which for a launched SaaS for example would include fixing bugs or even developing basic features) were likely not R&E. Maybe if you embarked on a journey to develop a totally new product, it would have been.
It seems like the most basic reading of this is pretty straightforward: they've taken that decision making away and said "if it's software dev, it's R&E." Not "if it's software dev for a new feature, but hey existing bug fixes and maintenance don't count," just, "software is R&E now always."
Obviously everyone has their own risk tolerance for how they interpret things and what definition they use.
1) You can't just go get a loan for "a software" like you can "a widget maker." Most businesses with these large capital assets get loans on them and then it works out nicely as you pay back the loan on the asset while you depreciate it.
2) This would be like the law saying "anything you do in the business of making widgets at all is now a capital outlay" which is obviously ridiculous. It's not that they said "if you buy expensive tools to make software now you have to capitalize them", it's written that any expense at all in service to software development is something now capitalized.
Not that you agree with what's been done and I appreciate your example, but I think it does give a good contrast to see the differences.
What I've heard is that there's already strong support for changing this but it's just a matter of Congress actually being functional, which political affiliation aside, it's not right now.
To be clear my companies are going to be fine either way, but I am not a fan of pulling up the ladder of success behind me and the me of 10 years ago trying to start his first thing shouldn't have to deal with this nonsense.
Also thanks for Reddit ;)
So it's like:
Year 1: 0.1 Year 2-5: 0.2 Year 6: 0.1
In fact it says:
> The TCJA added a special rule under Sec. 174(c)(3) for the treatment for software development costs, stating that “any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure.” Prior to this addition, taxpayers relied on Rev. Proc. 2000-50, which stated that the costs of developing computer software so closely resemble Sec. 174 R&E expenditures that a similar accounting treatment should be used. When this revenue procedure was issued, R&E expenditures were currently deducted. Under the TCJA, software development costs are treated as R&E expenses but are now subject to five- or 15-year amortization.
...which is what I am saying in my example -- software dev costs are now forced to be 5-year amortized.
Honestly my main reason for starting this discussion was a) to see if anyone else's professional advice (e.g. from a CPA) was different, and b) to hopefully drum up awareness so maybe in some roundabout fashion this gets changed.