I'm not sure why TFA makes it sound like almost no one has heard of it, but it was extensively discussed on HN in early 2023 as being a primary cause of layoffs, before it was cool to blame AI.
Why the big tech firms that suddenly laid off a bunch of people the instant they started looking at their 2022 tax bill didn't tell everyone explicitly that that's what was happening I can't say, but it's not like this has been happening in secret.
Obviously interest rates also play a role, and probably a larger one. But this is objectively a very very bad contributing factor, far worse than the impact of coding LLMs.
Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten survival (924 points, 981 comments) April 18, 2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35614313
Ask HN: How are you handling Section 174 changes for bootstrapped companies? (298 points, 187 comments) Feb 2, 2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34627712
Why the big tech firms that suddenly laid off a bunch of people the instant they started looking at their 2022 tax bill didn't tell everyone explicitly that that's what was happening I can't say, but it's not like this has been happening in secret.
Obviously interest rates also play a role, and probably a larger one. But this is objectively a very very bad contributing factor, far worse than the impact of coding LLMs.