Our R&D Tax Credit Software FAQs

Yes, profitability does not affect qualification. However, if you are not profitable, you either A) have to qualify as a small business start-up to apply the credit against your payroll taxes, or B) carryforward the credits until you have regular tax liability. The qualification for small business payroll tax offset is less than five (5) years of gross receipts history, and less than $5MM in gross receipts during the tax year in which the credit is being claimed.

The amount of the credit varies based on a variety of factors including amount of qualified expenses, historic R&D spend, and calculation method. There is no maximum limit or minimum amount of expenses that would affect qualification. There is a limit however, to the small business payroll tax offset which is $250,000 per year. If you are applying for a payroll tax offset and exceed the $250,000 annual credit limit then the remaining credits will just get applied to your regular tax liability.

The tax credit is immediately applied to your tax liability on your corporate tax return. This means that your benefit is calculated into your final tax due. As long as you filed your return timely, you will not have to wait for the IRS to issue a refund. If you did make an amended claim, that claim can take anywhere between six (3) months to nine (9) months to be processed.

CPAs are expected to have a general and broad knowledge of tax. This allows them to tackle the hundreds of possible situations that they deal with on a daily basis for their clients. Because the R&D tax credit, unlike other tax incentives, requires deep experience and interpretation of code sections that are not always clearly defined, it is not uncommon for CPAs to recommend consulting services or calculation platforms like GOAT.tax, to handle the R&D credit while they handle everything else.

Yes, employee salaries are only one (1) of the qualified expenses that generate an R&D tax credit. Other qualified expenses include Supplies and Materials, Outside Contractors, and even Cloud Computing costs! Not having employees does not preclude a company from claiming and utilizing the R&D tax credit.

In the case of an audit, provided you conducted your study on GOAT.tax, we would provide audit assistance, free of charge with your study. This includes direct discussions with our R&D tax credit experts who will advise you every step of the way and help you navigate the complex Internal Revenue Code in order to defend the credits you have generated.

No problem! The R&D tax credit can be carried back one (1) year and forward for a period of 20 years. This allows companies to either recover taxes paid in the prior year, or continue to carry the credit into future years to use as needed. If you have generated a qualified small business payroll tax offset, any excess credit is carried forward quarter to quarter, for a period of 20 years or until those credits are exhausted, whichever comes first.

There are two (2) different calculation methods for the R&D tax credit. The first, is the Regular Credit which compares your current R&D qualified expenses to historic R&D spend by comparing past years spend against your total revenue. The second method, is the Alternative Simplified Credit (ASC) which compares your current spend to the prior three (3) years of spend by your company. GOAT.tax's SmartCreditEngine runs both methods to determine the maximum benefit that your company is entitled to.

GOAT.tax is an R&D tax credit platform that was created by Source Advisors to assist taxpayers in claiming the R&D tax credit. Source Advisors is a consulting group that was formed over 30 years ago that specializes in the R&D tax credit and has established itself as a leader in the industry. Source Advisors has over 150 tax professionals globally and serves a diverse pool of clients in over 70 different industries.

GOAT.tax was created for the purpose of educating businesses on the R&D tax credit and assisting companies that qualify for the credit to claim it. Through the 305+ years of collective R&D tax credit experience across our nationwide team of over 50 R&D tax professionals, we have been able to take all the guesswork out of this complex tax credit incentive.

GOAT.tax provides several items in its final deliverable for every study completed on the platform. This includes relevant tax forms (Form 6765, any state R&D tax credit forms) in addition to Qualified Research Expense (QRE) summaries for each category of expenses where QREs were identified. The level of detail within the expense analysis will be dependent on the detail provided during the study. Finally, there will be an informational guide with filing instructions.

Our Fees are 20% of the generated tax credits. The fees are always fixed, and if there is no tax benefit, there are no fees. There is no risk to you, and we can guarantee a return on your investment.