When you think of Research and Development (R&D) many people envision a chemistry lab or a high tech robotics company.  It’s because of this thinking that millions of dollars of available tax credits for R&D go unused every year.   R&D exists in virtually every industry and business owners need to start thinking about R&D in a different light because there could be huge tax savings waiting for them.

Most companies don't realize that they qualify

Road paving companies, manufactures, a meatball company, software firms, and architecture firms are just a few examples of companies that have met the criteria to qualify for these lucrative tax credits.

Think of R&D as a unique process within your company that you may be using throughout the course of your everyday business that is specific to your competitive advantage.  The purpose of these credits is to encourage companies to be innovative with the end goal of keeping more jobs here in the U.S.   If you have an engineers on your staff, whether software engineers, design engineers, mechanical engineers there is a very good chance that these tax credits may be available to you.   The R&D tax credits also allow you to look back to all open tax years so for companies that discover this for the first time, the upside can be huge.  Tax years typically stay open for three years.

Accountants may not be aware of these credits

One of the main questions we get from business owners is “Shouldn’t my accountant have told me about this?”  Many accounting firms are unaware of these tax credits and the process for qualifying which is why there are specialty consulting firms that work with companies to determine whether or not they are eligible for the credit.  Some of our clients have worked with these firms and the company only pays the consulting firm if you qualify for the tax credits. Kind of a win-win situation.

We recently attended a seminar that was sponsored by Alliantgroup out of New York City and on their website it listed the following description of companies that qualify for these credits:“

Any company that designs, develops, or improves products, processes, techniques, formulas, inventions, or software may be eligible. In fact, if a company has simply invested time, money, and resources toward the advancement and improvement of its products and processes, it may qualify”.

We love helping our clients save taxes and in this case, like many others, we were looking at R&D in a different light. 

About Michael……...

Hi, I’m Michael Ruger. I’m the managing partner of Greenbush Financial Group and the creator of the nationally recognized Money Smart Board blog . I created the blog because there are a lot of events in life that require important financial decisions. The goal is to help our readers avoid big financial missteps, discover financial solutions that they were not aware of, and to optimize their financial future.