R&D credits,
documented to survive a look.

Qualifying research happens in far more companies than the word suggests.

The four-part test does not require a laboratory. It requires a permitted purpose, technological uncertainty, a process of experimentation and reliance on hard science. A machine shop refining a tolerance, a distributor building a routing algorithm and a food producer reformulating a shelf-stable product can all qualify. Many do not claim, and some claim far too aggressively.

We assess qualification before quoting the work, and we say no when the answer is no. Where the activity does qualify, we build the study around contemporaneous evidence: project records, time allocations, engineering notes, rather than reverse-engineering a percentage from payroll after the fact.

Qualified small businesses can apply up to the statutory limit of the federal credit against payroll tax rather than income tax, which matters enormously to a company that is not yet profitable. The election has to be made on a timely filed return, so it is a planning item, not a filing item.

Section 174 is the other half of this conversation. Research expenditure is capitalized and amortized regardless of whether you claim a credit, which catches companies who never thought of themselves as doing research at all. We handle both sides together, because treating them separately is how the numbers stop agreeing.