800+ business owners fighting to keep tax rules from destroying small tech companies
The Small Software Business Alliance is an informal group of small software and technology business founders who are united to fix Section 174. Software development and other research and development expenses must be fully expensable.
Read our March 6, 2024 letter to Senate leadership, urging them to swiftly pass HR 7024, The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which contains relief for domestic R&D expenses for 2022-2025. That letter was signed by 1,171 small software businesses in all 50 states.
“A tax code change that impacts how companies account for research and development costs is walloping businesses of all sizes. At best, it is a cash flow challenge, costing large public companies hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, which finance chiefs have said could dent their R&D spending. At worst, business owners wonder if their companies will make it, with some who run small and medium-size firms slowing growth, laying off workers or dipping into personal savings to cover tax bills.”
“Software startups say they were blindsided by shocking tax bills as a result of a change in law related to research and development costs, and if Congress does not provide a retroactive fix, business failures will spread throughout the industry.”
Tell the Senate to support HR 7024
Small businesses can't survive another year without being able to expense payroll
Due to new accounting rules that Congress never intended to take effect, as of 2022 software development and other activities the IRS considers R&D are no longer expensable. (Even if it's work on already-commercialized software and products!) Instead, those costs—salaries, servers, etc—must be spread out over many years. This is creating phantom profits and making companies' tax bills go up by over 400% in many cases. This is leading to layoffs and cutbacks in software development and R&D spending.
There's widespread bipartisan support for fixing R&D expensing, and the House has already passed a broader tax deal that includes a fix for domestic R&D expensing for 2022-2025. It passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, with 350 Representatives voting in favor.
But passage in the Senate is going to be an uphill battle. So now it's time for everyone to contact their Senators and ask them to support HR 7024—exactly as the House passed it, without amendments.
You may have never contacted Congress before, and that's okay! We're here to help. Below you'll find scripts for what to say and how exactly to get in touch. Congressional staff are required to keep tallies of which issues constituents (i.e. people who live in their district or state) contact their office about and report those tallies to their boss and other staff, so your time is well-spent.
Here's what to do
1. Email your Senators using their contact forms (linked below)
2. Use the template below with your email, making sure to personalize it a bit with info about your company (so that it gets counted as a unique communication).
3. Want to do more? Call their office as well.
4. After you call, tweet at them. It might sound silly, and you might be wondering if tweeting actually does anything, but it does! We want their communications staffs' Twitter dashboards blowing up about this. It all adds to the feeling that there is widespread support for the tax deal.
Step 1. Choose your role below to get a template
IMPORTANT:Customize the text.
If Congressional staff receive the exact same text from 10 people, it only counts as one email—not 10. So add your own flavor to the template!
