<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>SirensOfTitan</author><text>The fact that, as far as I understand, section 174 rules are disliked across the aisle, yet Congress cannot get its act together enough to fix what will wreak the pipeline for arguably the most valuable and dynamic part of the US&amp;#x27;s economy speaks volumes.  The legislative branch of the US federal government is in such dire need of reform.</text><parent_chain><item><author>_justinfunk</author><text>I wonder if the new IRS section 174 rules are intensifying these tech lay offs. As far as I understand it, software engineering salaries are no longer fully tax deductible in the year they are paid, instead they can only be depreciated at 20%.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Discord is laying off 17 percent of employees</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/11/24034705/discord-layoffs-17-percent-employees</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>UncleOxidant</author><text>In addition to more layoffs&amp;#x2F;less hiring it looks like there are a lot of undesirable side effects of this change, especially for small to medium sized companies. Including moving IP out of the US. What were they thinking?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;the-pulse-75&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;the-pulse-75&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>_justinfunk</author><text>I wonder if the new IRS section 174 rules are intensifying these tech lay offs. As far as I understand it, software engineering salaries are no longer fully tax deductible in the year they are paid, instead they can only be depreciated at 20%.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Discord is laying off 17 percent of employees</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/11/24034705/discord-layoffs-17-percent-employees</url></story>