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But here's the catch: the deadline to amend 2022 returns starts hitting in March 2026. Miss it, and that year's money is gone forever.
(60-Second Check)
If you checked all boxes, keep reading.
Most business owners think qualifying R&D activities means scientists in white coats. The IRS definition is much broader. If your team spends time figuring out how to make something work, not just executing a known solution, that often qualifies.
The test isn't whether you succeeded. It's whether you faced technical uncertainty and experimented to resolve it.
The federal R&D tax credit is typically 6-8% of qualifying wages and expenses. For a company with $2M in qualifying R&D spend per year, that's roughly $120,000-$160,000 per year in credits. Additionally, about 37 states have their own version of the R&D tax credit, which is additive and in addition to the federal credit.
If you skipped 2022, 2023, and 2024, you could be looking at $360,000-$480,000 in recoverable credits, potentially coming back as a cash refund on a federal basis. State credits would be in addition and can be similar or greater.
Real example:
A mid-size manufacturing company we work with paused their R&D claims during 2022-2024. After the law changed, we went back and recalculated:
2022: $87,000 in credits
2023: $94,000 in credits
2024: $103,000 in credits
Total recovery: $284,000, now being filed as amended returns.
Congress gave businesses a window to go back and fix this, but that window has hard edges.
Note: If you amortized your domestic R&D expenses, whether you took the R&D tax credit or not, under Section 174’s prior requirements (pre-OBBBA), there is also a hard stop of July 6, 2026 for the special retroactive election, regardless of individual filing dates. These taxpayers potentially stand to gain even more by reversing their previous Section 174 amortization.
Bottom line: If you want to recover 2022 credits, you need to start now.
Three reasons:
1. The law change was buried.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July 2025 with hundreds of provisions. The retroactive R&D fix got minimal coverage.
2. The original problem was confusing.
Starting in 2022, businesses had to amortize R&D expenses over 5 years instead of deducting them immediately. This made the math complicated enough that many companies, and their accountants, stopped taking the credit and or performing R&D.
3. Most CPAs are focused on current-year filings.
Tax season means preparing 2024 returns, not going back to look at 2022-2023. This opportunity requires someone to proactively flag it.
We're not saying your CPA missed something obvious. We're saying this is a specialty area, and it's easy for it to fall through the cracks, especially now, when everyone is slammed with filing season.
Send them this question:
"With the OBBBA retroactive repeal of Section 174 amortization, do we have an opportunity to amend prior year returns (2022-2024) to claim R&D tax credits? What's the deadline for 2022?"
Did we amortize any of our Section 174 R&D expenses? If so, should we consider reversing the amortization?
If they're aware of the opportunity and have already evaluated it for you, great. If not, it's worth a deeper conversation.
We do R&D tax credit studies exclusively. No tax prep, no compliance work, just R&D credits. We can usually tell you within 15-30 minutes whether you have a meaningful opportunity and give you a rough estimate of the opportunity.
No cost, no obligation. If there's nothing there, we'll tell you.
Skip this section if you're not a tax professional or just want the executive summary above.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 included a provision, delayed until 2022, requiring businesses to capitalize and amortize domestic R&D expenses over 5 years (15 years for foreign R&D) under IRC §174, rather than deducting them immediately.
This created two problems:
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, introduced IRC §174A, which:
Amended §280C(c) requires either:
The $31M gross receipts test under §448(c):
State treatment varies significantly:
The math is simple: if you did qualifying R&D work in 2022-2024 and didn't claim full credits, you likely have a recovery opportunity. The only question is how much, and whether you act before the deadlines close.
We'll tell you if there's an opportunity, estimate the size, and explain next steps. If there's nothing there, you'll know, andSS you can stop wondering.
Strike Tax Advisory specializes exclusively in R&D tax credit studies. We work with companies across manufacturing, software, engineering, and technology to identify and document qualifying activities. Success-fee pricing. Unlimited audit support.
You don't necessarily. But R&D credits are a specialty, most CPAs don't do them in-house. We work alongside your CPA, not instead of them. We handle the technical R&D study; they file the amended returns.
That's what the assessment is for. Most companies underestimate what qualifies. The IRS definition of R&D is much broader than "inventing something new." Learn more about qualifying activities on IRS.gov.
Typically 6-8 months after filing the amended return. The IRS is working through a backlog, but amended returns with refund claims do get processed.
We work on a success-fee basis. You pay a percentage of the credits we identify, nothing upfront, nothing if we don't find credits.
Many states have R&D credits that piggyback on the federal credit. We can evaluate those too, though state rules vary. Check state conformity details.
Yes, including Rev. Proc. 2025-28 for transitions, elections, and method changes. Consult a specialist to avoid mistakes. Read more on common pitfalls.
