This doesn’t seem shocking. We just had a year or two of rolling layoffs across major tech companies, interest rates are high, the market is fluctuating, and all of that is affecting hiring pipelines.
but a simplified TL;dr is that companies used to be able to expense that year's R&D costs (including salaries for developers etc) in that same taxable year. now, that is no longer the case, and companies must amortize those R&D costs over 5 years.
this is not ideal.
[0] https://www.axios.com/2024/01/20/taxes-irs-startups-section1...
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/
A recent bill has given relief for the domestic amortization but is still stuck in the senate.
https://gop-waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/0...