Your contracts decide which research actually counts.
For a government contractor the research credit is routinely wrong in both directions at once. The determination that settles it is not a tax determination. It is a reading of your agreements.
Two mistakes, usually in the same company.
Credits get claimed on cost-type contract research that the law excludes as funded. Credits never get claimed on eligible independent research and development and on fixed-price development work that would qualify. One is exposure. The other is money left behind.
Both failures come from the same root: the research dollar is classified once on the contract side and tested once on the tax side, on the same underlying facts, by people who never compare files. We read the contracts first and settle the characterization before the credit is computed.
The substantiation bar is rising at the same time. Business-component reporting under Section G of Form 6765 is required for most filers for tax years beginning after 2025, which is precisely where contractor documentation tends to be thinnest.
Qualified project by project, defended contract by contract.
Each project is qualified under the four-part test of IRC §41, and every statutory exclusion is screened rather than assumed.
The funded-research analysis runs contract by contract from your actual agreements, on their payment-contingency terms and rights clauses, under the controlling Federal Circuit framework. This is the determination most studies skip.
The qualified research expense build-up prices wages, supplies, computer use, and contract research at the statutory inclusion rates.
The credit is computed both ways, under the regular method and the alternative simplified credit, with the §280C election comparison shown after tax.
The deliverable maps to Form 6765 including the Section G business-component rows, so the claim is filing-ready and examination-ready on the same paper.
Domestic research expensing, in its current posture.
Coordination with current-law §174A domestic expensing is embedded in scope, including identification of unamortized 2022 through 2024 research balances that remain recoverable through a companion method-change engagement.
The retroactive small-business election window under the 2025 procedural guidance closed on July 6, 2026, and no extension was issued. For a taxpayer who was eligible, our role now is confirming what was actually filed. Engagements from that date forward run on current-law expensing and on recovery of remaining unamortized balances.
An R&D Credit Study Report as a PDF prepared for the named recipient: each project’s qualification finding with the authority it rests on, the contract-by-contract funded-research determinations with the risk-and-rights record that defends them, the expense build-up and the credit computed both ways with the §280C comparison, the Form 6765 mapping including Section G, and the recommendations each finding triggers.
You choose the delivery tier.
FactorTax delivers the analysis and the filing-ready documentation, built to withstand examination. Your tax provider implements it.
FactorTax delivers the study and implements it end to end, preparing and filing the accounting-method change and signing as practitioner of record under Treasury Circular 230.
The fee is a single flat amount set by the expense band confirmed in the engagement letter before work begins. It is independent of your revenue tier and is never adjusted based on the credit produced. A fixed, result-independent fee keeps the engagement clear of the contingent-fee restrictions of Treasury Circular 230 §10.27.