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Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by atxtechbro on Monday June 09, 2025 @01:08PM (#44226604)
Signed. As a US-based developer, I fully support restoring the deductibility of software development expenses. This policy change quietly gutted countless startups and engineering teams—it’s long past time we fix it.

Appreciate YC and folks like @itsluther pushing this forward. This isn’t just a tax issue—it’s about keeping innovation and talent thriving in the US. Let’s get it done.

Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by arrowsmith on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @06:53AM (#44235192)
> This isn’t just a tax issue—it’s about keeping innovation and talent thriving in the US.

Did ChatGPT write this?

Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by andrewlgood on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @09:15AM (#44236405)
That is actually why software development was allowed to be expensed prior to 2017 - to keep innovation thriving in the US. In 2017, they US simply stopped giving preferential treatment to R&D.
Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by smilliken on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @11:56AM (#44238364)
The em dash was in popular use long before chatgpt. It's a useful grammatical symbol and a short dash is not a good substitute. Consider whether you'd use it if it was a dedicated key on your keyboard, if so then it's worth the small inconvenience to learn how to type it.
Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by arrowsmith on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @04:59PM (#44241379)
Not just the em dash, the whole post stinks of ChatGPT, and there are two other obvious tells in the sentence I quoted.

If you know you know.

Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by smilliken on Thursday June 12, 2025 @12:10PM (#44259373)
Fair enough. I'm sensitive about the em dash being used as a tell, which I've seen mentioned once or twice, because I don't want people to dumb down punctuation to avoid being confused for an LLM. I'd guess it's a temporary issue until the LLMs get so good at blending in that we can't tell anymore.
Re:Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev ... by atxtechbro on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @01:26PM (#44239227)
Why does it matter? In a little while this will stop being a question people will ask. If anything it shows I put value into a high quality comment, that shows effort, and I also hand signed the letter form.

I guess the point about how hard it is to manually type that character is a great point though, I appreciate that!