OK, but you've changed the topic from tax accounting to financial accounting/reporting.

In the US, it remains the case that programmers salaries must be treated as an expense (i.e., cannot be amortized) when calculating the company's income statement, balance sheet, etc. Not following that rule will get the accounting firm signing off on those financial reports in trouble (with the SEC, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and maybe even the Justice Department if the purpose of the violation was to defraud investors).

"Profitable" in an accounting sense has nothing to do with your cash position. This is something that people in tech don't really seem to understand.

Yes, that is tremendously important aspect here - the US tech would look better on paper - higher paper profits due lower paper expenses - while getting increased cash flow stress due to decreased deductability of the salaries which are among the main expenses in software dev business.

Exactly. And if you’re more profitable on paper, you have to pay more tax, making you even less profitable in reality.