Comment by e40
6 months ago
And if the R&D uses foreign workers, because you can't afford to pay US wages, then the 5 years goes to 15 years!
This hurts small companies (like mine) that were priced out of the US developer market.
6 months ago
And if the R&D uses foreign workers, because you can't afford to pay US wages, then the 5 years goes to 15 years!
This hurts small companies (like mine) that were priced out of the US developer market.
I’m not sure this is exactly true. If your foreign workers are a service contract then those are services expenses immediately deductible. Same if you are using local service contracts. My understanding is this creates a drag for companies that want to hire f/t.
Foreign workers are to my knowledge effectively always a service contract, since it's pretty complicated (if even possible) to hire FTEs across borders without subsidiaries, which are expensive to maintain.
I'm curious if contract work is really exempt, would look like a major loophole to me.
> Foreign workers are to my knowledge effectively always a service contract, since it's pretty complicated (if even possible) to hire FTEs across borders without subsidiaries, which are expensive to maintain.
It's impossible (yes, I'm being absolute) to hire an employee who lives in or outside the US who is not a citizen or doesn't have a green card. All employees must have an SSN and go through i9 verification, which requires in person verification of legal ability to work in the US.
The foreign developers I'm talking about are not US citizens and do not have green cards.
Their work is subject to 15 year amortization per section 174. Period.
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Tax law is full of major loopholes. It’s highly political law, so doing one thing while saying you are doing another is a feature, not a bug.
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This is simply not true. Says my lawyer and CPA. And every other CEO/CFO I've talked with.
Same.
We don't talk about this enough. International R&D is not offshoring of call-centers to India. International R&D is the IP for the next generation of global communication standards being owned by US-based or foreign corporations, because international (e.g. Canadian, European) standards experts/developers become un-affordable for US-based corporations and are forced to work for our "adversaries" instead. Crazy.