Research and Development Costs

U.S. GAAP requires rms to expense all the internal expenditures immediately for research and development (R&D) costs. As an alternative, U.S. GAAP could require rms to capitalize and then amortize all internal expenditures on R&D that have future potential.

• Why have those who have set the standards chosen to disallow the capitalization alternative?
• How would the U.S. GAAP requiring capitalization of R&D costs benefit analysts interests?