Biz Talk with Sherman On
Our Managing Partner, Les Bryson, was recently featured on Biz Talk with Sherman On! Biz Talk with Sherman On is a fast-paced business-to-business show with interviews and everything the small and medium business owner needs to know today. In his segment, Les explains the benefits of R&D and Employee Tax credits on small to mid-sized businesses. He also answers how the increased IRS personnel will affect these businesses.
Watch the video below to check out the segment. Keep reading for a recap of what was discussed.
Tax Credits Available to Small and Mid-Sized Businesses:
Fortune 1000 companies have been working with different providers and claiming various tax incentives to reduce tax liability for decades. Probity Tax Recovery provides those same services for small to mid-sized businesses.
There are two tax incentives that are particularly beneficial to these types of businesses; the R&D Tax Credit and the Employee Retention Tax Credit.
The R&D Tax Credit is an industry-agnostic tax credit that lowers tax liability for companies developing new or improved products and processes. Anything that is keeping their company competitive in the marketplace. If your company relies on a hard science to accomplish this, chances are you qualify for the R&D tax credit. Check out the industries section of our website to learn more about your particular industry.
The ERC is also a tax credit available to businesses regardless of industry. If your company lost revenue during the height of the pandemic and retained employees, you may be eligible for $26,000 per employee for the 2020 and 2021 tax periods. Any business that qualifies can take advantage of the credit. This credit offsets payroll taxes and qualifications evaluated for each quarter of the year.
Both of these credits have had a huge impact on small to mid-sized businesses and are available for you to take advantage of on current, past (depending on the year), and future tax returns.
Are there risks associated with claiming these credits as the IRS hires new agents?
The Inflation Reduction Act led to new funding for the IRS. Specifically, this law gives $80 billion in funding to the service over the course of the next ten years. More than half of that is dedicated to hiring 87,000 new employees. With these new employees, there are fears that audits will increase. While that is a valid fear, currently the IRS workforce is low as a result of employees retiring or transitioning to public accounting.
The main purpose of hiring 87,000 will be to rebuild employee headcount back to pre-pandemic levels. As the workforce is rebuilt, examinations will increase but not as much as some think. Right now examinations are at an all-time low. If examinations increase, it will still be in line with where examinations were pre-pandemic which was at a rate of less than 5%. The uptick in exams will not be astronomical.
Increased personnel will allow the IRS to process the backlog of unprocessed tax returns which will lead to faster turnaround times for refunds. At the end of 2021, the IRS had more than 8.2 million tax returns that remained in inventory. As of Sept. 9, 2022, the IRS had 7.2 million unprocessed individual returns received this year, including the tax year 2021 returns and late-filed prior-year returns.
The Probity Tax Recovery team will continue to monitor updates with the IRS and tax policy in order to keep our clients up to date with the latest news. If you would like to talk to a member of our team about your company's tax situation, you can set up a meeting with us here.