Federal Tax Incentives

For Your Business

Most business owners overpay their federal taxes — not because they did anything wrong, but because the credits they’ve earned are buried in forms they’ve never had reason to open. Every year, real money goes unclaimed simply because no one connected the dots between what a business already does and the incentives Congress created to reward it.

What are federal tax incentives?

Federal tax incentives are credits and deductions the government offers to encourage specific business activity — research, hiring, clean energy, employee benefits, and more. The most valuable ones are tax credits, which reduce your tax bill dollar-for-dollar (a deduction only reduces the income you’re taxed on).

Most business credits flow through a single umbrella called the General Business Credit (IRS Form 3800). The nice part: if you can’t use the full credit in one year, it generally carries back one year and forward up to 20 — so the value rarely disappears. The hard part: each credit has its own rules, its own form, and its own documentation standards. That’s where an advisor pays for itself.

Below is a quick overview of the credits we work with most — click into any one to dive into the details, eligibility rules, and real numbers.

Explore the Federal Credits We Service

R&D Tax Credit

You don’t need a laboratory to qualify. If your business develops or improves products, software, processes, formulas, or techniques, the R&D credit rewards the wages, supplies, and contract-research costs tied to that work — typically worth about 6% to 10% of your qualified research spending. Younger companies can even apply up to $500,000 a year against payroll taxes instead of income tax.

Explore the R&D Tax Credit — how to qualify, what counts as research, and how we build an audit-ready claim.

Work Opportunity Tax Credit

If you hire, you should be screening for WOTC. It rewards employers for hiring from targeted groups — veterans, the long-term unemployed, certain benefit recipients, and others — with credits of $2,400 to $9,600 per eligible hire. Without a system in place, it’s easy to miss out on this valuable credit. Currently the WOTC is not available due to a legislative lapse.

Explore the Work Opportunity Tax Credit — who qualifies, current program status, and how we build screening into your hiring.

Connect with us to learn more…

With a 15-minute discovery call, we can help you determine your eligibility across multiple credits and incentives.