There are means to offset, defer, and reduce tax burden that you also get from doing R&D, so honestly the change in the way the salary is treated is somewhat balancing these other tax benefits that startups are also taking. It's a balancing change to a larger system, not a targeted change to screw startups. A comparison over just Year #1 is disingenuous.
Let's say you have to pay 30% tax on 800,000 of profit, so now you're 240k in the hole. That's your year one! If you don't survive to take the future deductions it's kinda moot right?
Only a small portion of activities count as R&D for R&D tax credit purposes. R&E is a much bigger category and where the problem lies. This write up has a good graphic showing the magnitude (scroll halfway) https://www.striketax.com/journal/tcja-and-the-resulting-tax...
