Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Open Source R&D Tax Credit?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the never-get-past-the-lobyists dept.

Dan writes "The Center for American Progress is proposing an R&D tax credit for open source development." From the article: "Subsidizing open source software development can also be justified on grounds of economic efficiency. Open source software development enhances the ability of other developers to create new products. It also enhances the development and dissemination of knowledge and ideas more broadly. Since the benefits to the broader software development community and the economy as a whole go well beyond the users of an individual software product, a policy that subsidizes open source development would increase economic efficiency."

2 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. You can get tax breaks for closed source NOW by HippieJoe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why wait for a proposal to pass when you can get HUGE tax credits for writing closed source software NOW? For example, Ohio gave a closed source company $82,386 to keep it's 11 employees in the state! (http://www.odod.state.oh.us/newsroom/releases/135 7.asp Third example, tax break + grants) Thats $7489 per employee now, not in some proposed future.

  2. No thanks! by Zarxrax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Instead of supporting the further degeneration of a broken tax system, how about supporting a better one altogether? http://fairtax.org/ http://fairtaxgroups.com/