> It’s interesting that HN is more concerned about the rules changes than the person filing our company’s taxes (or our CFO). This is a topic that is basically glossed over as a non-event between us and those professionals.

You are the one who originally asked why engineers can't be considered a cost center. There is a reason; the R&D tax credit.

> Maybe I have a bad accountant and CFO? Or HN is extrapolating this to mean more than it does.

I am guessing you just do not qualify for the R&D tax credit or it just not worth the paperwork at your scale. For larger companies (and profitable, fast-growing startups that do a lot of the 'develop' part of R&D, which are rare these days, I guess) there is a benefit.

https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/research-and-...

Considering even the tax foundation claims would bring in less than 20k jobs, maybe Congress made the right decision to bring in amortization even if I disagree with what it funds. I do not have numbers for how much it brings it to the federal government but the credit was already known for being difficult for small businesses to use.