If you are considering hiring and the hire is a developer or at all involved in research and experimentation make sure you are well versed in Section 174.

You could be on the hook for a large tax bill since you have to write off developer expenses over 5 years – this is true whether an employee or contractor.

Hopefully it will be repealed* – but if not it is one of those things that no one would expect to exist since it is in the words of Senator Wyden "stupid."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/174

* edit It won't be repealed but a law can be created to ignored it until a future date. Once on the books, because of accounting, it is very hard to remove a tax law.