Any money paid to a coder is a business expense and therefore tax-deductible.
I'm not a coder, but I am an IT project manager and it grinds my gears to see this situation.
It's a glorified PowerPoint presentation FFS, the sort of thing Ren'py handles easily.
The real issue here is the lack of understanding by SR7 of what he has become (and missing the skillset to be) - a manager.
He's already acknowledged what needs to be done - hence SU Rebuilt. Not handing that off to another coder when it fell through was a huge mistake and the tech debt is only going to increase.
~$15k/mth is enough to hire a coder and a project manager, even at high rates due to the 'non-resume-compatible' nature of the project.
Three months should be long enough if done as a full-time job for both, given that the wireframe, storyboard and artwork already exist. Dialogue will need to be reverse engineered, that may slow things a little.
SR7 can continue with artwork and story in the meantime.
Again, it boils down to a lack of management expertise.
