Bill > S00043

This bill proposes to amend Section 606 of the tax law by adding a new subsection that allows taxpayers to claim a credit for expenses incurred in developing open source or free software license programs. Specifically, taxpayers can receive a credit equal to up to 20% of their out-of-pocket expenses for developing such programs, with a maximum credit of $200 per taxable year. A program qualifies if its code is released under an open source license recognized by the Open Source Initiative or a free software license recognized by the Free Software Foundation. This credit is elective, meaning taxpayers must choose to apply it for a given taxable year, and an election cannot be made for the same program in multiple years. The credit cannot exceed the taxpayer's total tax liability for the year, but any unused portion can be carried over to future years. This provision is intended to encourage the development of publicly accessible software and will take effect immediately, applying to taxable years beginning on or after January 1st of the year following its enactment.