loading . . . How a tax code time bomb fueled mass tech layoffs – “efficienze da AI” che non lo erano Una trumpata fiscale ha forzato l’ammortamento pluriennale di ricerca e sviluppo (prima era spesabile nell’anno) di fatto aumentando i costi e tagliando i profitti.
Come hanno reagito le big tech ? riducendo i costi di R&D, ovvero… licenziando.
“Pubblicamente, queste aziende hanno citato ragioni per i licenziamenti come inefficienze e l’intelligenza artificiale, ma internamente i fogli di calcolo finanziari raccontavano una storia diversa. Le note di MD&A – note del management contenute nei documenti finanziari – hanno rivelato che la ricerca e lo sviluppo erano diventati più costosi da mantenere, e che l’organico rappresentava la spesa di ricerca e sviluppo più significativa nel settore tecnologico. Di conseguenza, ridurre il personale è diventato un modo semplice per ridurre i costi.”
> Since the beginning of 2023, the tech industry has witnessed over half a million layoffs, according to industry tallies. While public narratives often attribute these job cuts to over-hiring during the pandemic and the rise of AI, a deeper examination reveals a less visible catalyst: the modification of Section 174 of the tax code.
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> Now, as a bipartisan effort to repeal the Section 174 change moves through Congress, bigger questions are surfacing: How did a single line in the tax code help trigger a tsunami of mass layoffs? And why did no one see it coming?
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> When Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the signature legislative achievement of President Donald Trump’s first term, it slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — a massive revenue loss on paper for the federal government.
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> To offset this cost, lawmakers introduced future tax hikes that would not take effect immediately, allowing for potential repeal later. One such provision was the delayed change to Section 174, which transitioned from immediate expensing of R&D to mandatory amortization over five or even 15 years. This change, which took effect in 2022, was designed to make the TCJA appear “deficit neutral” over a 10-year period.
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> The delay wasn’t a technical necessity. It was a political tactic. Such moves are common in tax legislation. Phase-ins and delayed provisions let lawmakers game how the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — Congress’ nonpartisan analyst of how bills impact budgets and deficits — scores legislation, pushing costs or revenue losses outside official forecasting windows.
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> And so, on schedule in 2022, the change to Section 174 went into effect. Companies filed their 2022 tax returns under the new rules in early 2023. And suddenly, R&D wasn’t a full, immediate write-off anymore. The tax benefits of salaries for engineers, product and project managers, data scientists, and even some user experience and marketing staff — all of which had previously reduced taxable income in year one — now had to be spread out over five- or 15-year periods.
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> The impact of this change became evident as major tech companies began announcing layoffs. Meta, for instance, declared its “Year of Efficiency” immediately after the Section 174 change took effect. Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees in early 2023, despite strong earnings, while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, cut 12,000 jobs. around the same time.
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> Amazon (AMZN) also laid off nearly 30,000 people, with cuts affecting projects that would have previously qualified as immediately deductible R&D. Salesforce (CRM) eliminated 10% of its staff — 8,000 people — including entire product teams.
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> Publicly, these companies cited reasons like bloat and AI for the layoffs, but internally, financial spreadsheets told a different story. MD&A notes — management’s notes in financial filings — revealed that R&D had become more expensive to maintain, with headcount being the most significant R&D expense across the tech industry. As a result, reducing staff became an easy way to cut costs.
Source: _How a tax code time bomb fueled mass tech layoffs_
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