Real technical work may already qualify for the federal R&D credit. The proof is perishable: easy to capture while your team builds, nearly impossible to reconstruct in March.
Book a free 20-minute Fit ScreenThe credit rewards resolving technical uncertainty through experimentation. That describes a lot of serious AI work happening inside ordinary businesses right now. It tends to look like this:
If your AI activity is ordinary adoption, we will say so plainly on the call. That answer is free too.
The burden of proof is on you, and the proof is perishable. Which approaches failed. Who spent hours where. What the contracts said. What the tests showed. All of it is easy to capture while your team is building, and painful, sometimes impossible, to reconstruct in March from old commit logs and memory.
“Study firms show up after year-end and work with whatever evidence survived. We get in the room before the work happens.”
Startups: the payroll-tax election that turns the credit into near-term cash exists only on an original, timely filed return. There is no amending your way back into it.
A short intake, then a candid conversation about what your team is building. You leave knowing whether there is a real opportunity and the right next step, including business decisions that could open the door if it is not open today.
Two working sessions, business then technical. Within seven business days: a preliminary written memo covering what may qualify, what does not, conservative economics, evidence gaps, and a path forward.
Contemporaneous tracking, documentation prompts, quarterly reviews, contract screening, and a study-ready year-end handoff. Recommended only when the conservative benefit clearly justifies the cost. Cancel anytime.
When a formal study is warranted, an independent specialist performs it. We take no percentage of any credit, so when we say an opportunity is real, you can rely on it.
You are usually the first person who can see a client cross from adopting AI into genuinely developing it. When off-the-shelf tools cannot solve the problem, we help determine whether custom development makes business and R&D-credit sense, and what evidence to preserve from the first sprint. Write to cromine@rhwcpas.com to compare notes.
The best time to start tracking was the first sprint. The second-best time is this week.
Book a free 20-minute Fit Screen