With tax filing season in full swing and business owners looking at higher tax bills this year, it is all the more important to understand and use the biggest tax credit available for companies – the nearly $10 billion a year research and development credit.
Now that we have reached the middle of the filing season and sequestration is a reality, let’s take stock of where it is all going at the Internal Revenue Service. My sense is that the service is getting by so far, but that it will be hard pressed to maintain taxpayer service and enforcement levels in the months ahead.
Congress has been the piñata in every poll lately, but recently presented bipartisan legislation — the Start-up Innovation Credit Act of 2013 (SICA) introduced by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) — is proof that Capitol Hill has its share of good ideas. In brief, SICA allows start-ups to take advantage of the R&D tax credit for the first time.
Many businesses still think that this lucrative tax benefit is onlyfor the white lab coat set—much to their detriment, according to a speaker at the FAE’s May 1 Apparel & TextileBreakfast Conference
The IRS recently released its enforcement results for 2011. Based on a number of conversations with senior IRS officials, reviewing the statistics and what we are seeing first hand in our tax controversy practice at alliantgroup – one trend is clear (and will be continuing) — that the IRS is focusing greater resources on small and medium businesses.
The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (Jobs Act), signed into law in late September 2010, provides a little-reported change in the tax laws that can have a big impact on the ability of small and medium businesses to claim general business credits such as the research and development (R&D) tax credit.