<aside> 📘 TL;DR;
川普在 2017 年提出的减税法案，使得税务局修订了征税标准，要求严格执行 S174。这一修订于 5 年后的 2022 年生效，而 2022 财年于 2023 年结算，导致很多公司收到了巨额税单，这也是造成 2023 裁员潮的一大原因。
S174 的最重要内容就是研发成本摊销，要求将美国内研发成本平摊到未来 5 年，美国以外地区的研发成本平摊到 15 年。简而言之，一家在财年内收支相抵零利润的公司，在税表上会表现为盈利，盈利额为 80% 的研发成本，这是因为当年的研发成本在每年只计算 20%。
S174 事实上给科创公司造成了财务重负，美国很可能会迎来一波出海潮，将科创公司主体设置在海外，从而规避 S174。
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In October, we looked into bootstrapped companies founded by software engineers and the article resonated with many readers; I got lots of messages from bootstrapped founders following that issue. Many messages were complaints about something called “Section 174 changes.” Here’s what one founder said:
“Have you heard of a change in Section 174 of the US tax law that kicked in a few years ago? This change is making bootstrapped software businesses completely unsustainable.
I did some research, and The Wall Street Journal and a handful of other news outlets have covered this change since last March. Still, founders reaching out shared that it feels like public awareness is low about just how large a problem this tax change is. Back last April, Ben Thompson at Stratechery covered this change, also expressing his surprise on how impacted companies seemed to be blissfully unaware of this regulation:
“I’ve been very surprised that few people in tech seem to know about this issue, at least in the private conversations that I have had, even though startups are arguably the hardest hit companies of all.”
I took to social media to gather more information, and a surprising number of complaints from US tech businesses came in.
Latest Updates on Section 174: Congress Acts on R&D Tax Law Changes - 2023 News
Many US software businesses amassed surprisingly high tax bills in 2023, seemingly out of nowhere, due to a tax change which took effect in July the previous year, which many small companies knew nothing about until finalizing their 2022 returns. The change was expected to be repealed (reversed) in December 2022, so many accountants didn’t inform customers for that reason. So, businesses got a surprise when the first tax payments fell due last April.
The amendment to S174 means employing software engineers can no longer be accounted as a direct cost in the year they are paid – unlike the norm, globally. Here’s a simplified example of the change from the final tax year before the change.
Take an imaginary bootstrapped software business called “Acme Corp.” This company generates $1,000,000 of revenue per year running a SaaS service. It employs five engineers, and pays each $200,000. That is $1,000,000 paid in labor costs. For simplicity, we omit other costs like servers and hosting, even though those costs can also fall under the new R&D rules, and have to be amortized. So, how much taxable profit does this company make?
In 2021, the answer would be zero profit. In 2022, the answer was $900,000 in profits(!!) This is because from 2022, software engineer labor costs must be amortized over five years. Here is how amortization works:
Let’s break this down:
The impact of Section 174 changes on a company that has $1M in revenue and $1M in labor costs.