You design or improve something you make
A new or better product, part, recipe, fixture or device, where you weren't sure at the start that it would work and had to try more than one approach.
R&D tax credits for operating businesses
Your business may qualify for the R&D tax credit. You don't need a lab.
If your team designs, builds or improves a product, the way a job gets done, or software, there may be a federal credit in it. We find out, and do the paperwork. You give us an hour or two.
Clayton Vaughn · R&D Tax Lead
Figure from one client study. Not a projection for your business.
Does this apply to you?
It isn't only for labs and software companies.
A trucking operator, a dental practice and a manufacturer are all judged on the same four questions: what you were trying to make better, whether you solved it with engineering rather than guesswork, whether you knew at the start that it would work, and whether you tried more than one way. It turns on the work, not the industry.
You develop or improve how work gets done
A new way to schedule, route, load, prepare or package, worked out by testing alternatives rather than copied from a manual. Routine changes and one-off fixes don't count.
You build or customize software
Custom tools, integrations or automation that someone on your team or a contractor builds. Software built for your own use faces a stricter test than software you sell, so this one needs a closer look.
You modify equipment or build tooling
Modified equipment, custom tooling, or a prototype built to solve a problem the standard version couldn't.
People on payroll, or contractors, do the work
Staff, supervisors or outside contractors spending real time on the work above. Their wages and fees are what the credit is built from.
You're not sure it counts
You may not have called it research, and you may not have kept records of it. That is the usual starting point, and the first call is how we find out.
Work like this may qualify if it passes all four parts of the IRS test. We tell you plainly if it doesn't.
What counts, and what you get
Most of it is wages you already paid.
You don't need to know the rules. We apply them, build the numbers from your payroll and ledger, and hand your accountant a package they can file.
Your people's time
Wages for the people who do, supervise or support the work, weighted by how much of their time actually went into it. This is usually the biggest part of the credit.
Supplies used in the work
Materials consumed while testing and building: prototypes, samples and trial runs that were used up rather than kept.
Outside contractors
If you pay an outside shop or contractor to do this work, most of what you paid can count — 65% of it — as long as you were paying for the result and you carried the risk if it didn't work.
A payroll-tax offset, for some
A small, young business can apply the federal credit against the employer share of payroll tax instead of income tax. That matters if you aren't paying much income tax yet: the credit comes off your payroll bill now, rather than waiting for a profitable year. It is limited by size and age, so we check whether you're eligible.
Federal and state credits
We compute the federal credit both ways the law allows and review the state credits that apply, so you aren't leaving a state benefit unclaimed.
Records that hold up
A report that ties each project to the four-part test and each dollar to a wage, a ledger entry or a bill, so the claim can be defended if it's ever questioned.
Where we stop
Your accountant stays your accountant.
We do one thing. You already have someone you trust with the rest of your tax and accounting, and the credit shouldn't come between you.
We provide R&D tax credit services only.
We work with your accountant, not around them. They prepare and sign your return; we deliver the study and the prepared forms they need to file the credit.
We don't take on accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation or advisory work. Anything like that goes back to your accountant.
We use your details to reply to you and run your study. No newsletters, no sequences, no list.
If you ask us for something outside R&D tax credits, we'll point you back to your own accountant.
How it works
Roughly an hour or two of your time.
We pull from your payroll and your books, so most of the documentation you'd expect to chase, we assemble ourselves.
01A short call
A short call about what your business does and who works on it. No engagement yet, and no cost.
02No-cost review
We look at payroll and the books and come back with a conservative estimate of the credit. If it isn't worth doing, we tell you.
03Engagement
A standalone engagement letter for the credit, for that tax year, with a fixed fee agreed before any work begins.
04The work
We assemble around 90% of it from data. The person who knows the work gives us an hour or two to talk through what the year actually looked like.
05Delivery
Credit computation, Form 6765 package, and the study, handed to your accountant to file. If you qualify for the payroll-tax offset, we help set it up so the benefit lands as payroll runs.
6–10%
of the wages and costs that count typically comes back as a federal credit
~90%
of the work we assemble from payroll and ledger data
1–2 hrs
of your time, in total
36
state credits reviewed alongside the federal claim
Estimates are illustrative, not a guarantee. Eligibility depends on revenue, company age, and the nature of the work.
Who you'd be working with
Clayton runs the R&D practice, and he'll be on your first call.
Clayton leads TaxCreditVisor's R&D tax credit practice. His background is R&D tax consulting: credit studies for businesses that haven't turned a profit yet, through to established manufacturers.
He starts every engagement himself: a short eligibility call, a conservative estimate of the credit, and a fixed fee, all before any work begins. If the credit isn't worth claiming, that call is where you'll hear it.
Clayton VaughnR&D Tax Lead, TaxCreditVisor
12 yrs
years running R&D credit studies
$70M
in R&D credits issued for clients
$90K
average R&D credit per qualifying client
200+
business owners and finance teams supported
Start here
Tell us about your business.
We'll come back with a straight answer on whether the credit is worth pursuing, and what the next step would be. No obligation, and nothing is filed without your say-so.