Businesses don't get to say they're claiming "$900k in costs" ... it depends on what kind of costs... EDIT: and in this instance, it depends on what kind of software engineering.

But why is software engineering treated specially, here? Does Disney have to pay taxes on film animators the same way, given that they're developing a capital asset?

Probably that is a large, rich field, and when you crunch the numbers, collecting corporate income taxes on 80% of essentially all s/w developer salaries in the first year after it goes into effect was a nice push to the CBO numbers related to Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

This is what's happened at my workplace. We account for time spent working on developing new products differently that development time maintaining legacy applications. Because they are reported for tax purposes differently.

This gets really “gray”. I work on web software and we tend to deploy at the end of the day. Meaning only the smallest programs are “new” or not yet in service.

This is a mess.

Seems like maintenance is better and can be deducted in the same year?

> Because they are reported for tax purposes differently.

For software that used to be an option.

Sec 174 removes the option.

Exactly