R&D deduction & credit recovery
From 2022 through 2024, Section 174 required businesses to spread their R&D deductions over five years instead of taking them the year the money was spent — cash held up for exactly the work R&D incentives are supposed to reward. Full same-year expensing is back for 2025, and whatever is still unamortized from 2022–2024 can come off your 2025 return in one go, or be split across 2025 and 2026. The small-business option to amend those years closed on July 6, 2026, but R&D credits you missed can still be claimed on an amended return for any year whose window is open.
Amending a return to claim an R&D credit you missed is generally allowed for three years from when that year's return was filed (a return filed early counts as filed on its due date). This is about the credit, not the Section 174 deduction.
A 2022 return filed by the April 2023 due date reached its 3-year mark in April 2026. If it was filed on extension in October 2023, the window to amend for a missed credit is closing about now.
A rule of thumb, not a ruling on your own return — the exact date depends on when your specific return was filed and any extensions.
Enter a rough income and R&D spend to see the deduction-timing swing between the two rules.
At these numbers, full expensing lowers the estimated federal tax bill by about $75,600 in the year the R&D is spent — from deduction timing alone.
Simplified illustration at a flat 21% federal corporate rate — ignores state tax, your actual bracket, and the R&D credit itself, which applies separately under both sets of rules. Under the 2022–2024 rules, the deduction you didn't get in year one is what's left to catch up on your 2025 (and 2026) return.
Any US business resolving a real technical uncertainty — building or improving a product, process, software, or technique through trial and testing — can qualify. That includes work that mostly just looks like doing the job.
Building or meaningfully improving an app, platform, or internal tool.
Developing a new process, material, or product design through real trial and testing.
Solving a technical problem where the outcome wasn't a given going in.
Iterating on a new product where more than one approach had to be tested.
We work out what's left to deduct, check for credits you missed in years that are still open, and put it on the right return, alongside your existing CPA if you have one, or start to finish if you don't.
Your unamortized 2022–2024 R&D balance, and any credits missed in years still open to amend.
The catch-up deduction on your 2025 or 2026 return, and an amendment for missed credits, with real study documentation behind it.
Which return each piece belongs on, and each year's amendment window, so nothing slips.
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