We run the four tests against your records and answer in writing. The federal credit often lands at 6 to 10 cents per qualifying dollar; states can add more. A yes comes with a file built for the examiner who may show up years later.
New or improved function, performance, reliability, or quality. "Better" must be technical, not cosmetic.
Physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, computer science, and related fields. Preference and opinion do not count.
Capability, method, or design was genuinely uncertain. Buying the off-the-shelf answer does not qualify.
A process of experimentation: identify, test, refine. The record of that process is the credit.
A line, cell, or workflow rebuilt to cut errors, time, or strain. Tested on the floor, measured in the data.
Technical uncertainty resolved by prototype and trial, not by preference survey.
Custom software, dashboards, and control systems proven out by technical testing.
Layout, equipment, or environment trials with data. The same projects that feed cost segregation.
If your project lives on this list, we'll tell you on the scoping call, free of a study fee.
Surveys without experiments. Efficiency surveys and social-science research are excluded by statute.
Training, coaching, wellness. Valuable, but not §41 research.
Preference testing. "Which do you like better" is not technical uncertainty.
Copying a known fix. If the answer was published, purchased, or standard practice, it wasn't unknown.
Funded research. Work someone else paid for and controlled belongs on their return, not yours.
Each project scored against all four tests, with the evidence cited, and the failures stated plainly.
Qualified wages, supplies, and contract research, traced to payroll and source documents.
Ready for your preparer to review and file, or ours. Prior years included when the facts and statute allow.
"Every number traces to a source document, every position to a written test. If it does not qualify, the memo says so before anyone claims it."
Bring the project. Twenty minutes. Flat scoping fee, credited toward the study.
Book a Qualification ReviewExamples of physical sciences, biological sciences, engineering, and computer science. IRC §41 looks for a technological foundation in these kinds of fields, not preference or pure social science.