This is something interesting to encourage individuals that are developping Open Source, since companies can benefit from Tax Credit for R&D why not for individuals ? the proposal by John Irons and Carl Malamud sounds really interesting and it's a real recognization to the contribution of individuals by the government. But do Open source developers need a Tax Credit to be reconized ? How does the Open Source process working in the last years, simply by donation ? Anyway check the Open Source Tax Credit proposal and give your opinion about it.

If you’re a corporation and you develop software, you deduct your costs from your taxes. And, in many cases, you can take an R&D Tax Credit. But if you’re an individual and you develop open source software — i.e., Firefox or WordPress — you eat those costs.

Individuals developing open source software should have the same tax incentives as corporations, which is why we’ve developed a proposal for an Open Source Tax Credit.