OBBBA §174A election closes · July 6, 2026 — calculating…

§ 01 — OBBBA §174A retroactive R&D credit

Recover your
2022–2024
R&D credit. Before July 6.

$50K–$500K typical recovery for sub-$31M-receipts SaaS founders. We turn your filed returns + payroll + project list into a CPA-ready amendment workpaper. Your CPA files the amended return. We never touch the IRS.

Pre-launch · no payment yet · waitlist gets 20% off launch pricing

Sample
section174 · workpaper EIN ••-•••1234

Acme Software, Inc.

2022–2024 §174A retroactive amendment


  • 2022$84,200 refund est.
  • 2023$112,900 refund est.
  • 2024$67,400 refund est.
3-year cumulative $264,500
  • Wages4 engineers · 71% R&D · $310,400
  • Contract2 vendors · 65% qualified · $48,000
  • SuppliesCloud + dev tools · $12,800

§ 02 — three questions

Are you eligible?

If you can answer "yes" to all three, the OBBBA §174A retroactive election almost certainly applies to you.

Quick pre-screen

No data leaves your browser. We don't even capture the answers — we just unlock the right CTA.

i.Are you a US-incorporated entity (LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, or partnership)?

ii.Is software development your primary R&D activity? (web/mobile apps, SaaS, infra, ML systems)

iii.Were your average gross receipts ≤ $31M over your last 3 tax years?

§ 03 — three inputs, one workpaper

From your existing files to a CPA-ready workpaper in about an hour.

No tax software to learn. No questionnaire to fill. Upload what you already have.

  1. i.

    Upload three things, per amendment year.

    Your filed return PDF (Form 1120, 1065, or 1120-S) · your payroll register CSV (Gusto, Rippling, ADP, QBO Payroll — we auto-detect) · a free-text project list ("we built X feature using Y stack").

    ~10 min
  2. ii.

    Our parser + Claude classify your QREs.

    Form lines are pulled with pdfplumber. Each engineer's role × project gets matched against IRS Reg §1.41-4's four-part test. Conservative posture — we err under, not over. Confidence flags surface anything for human review.

    ~30 min
  3. iii.

    You get a workpaper that mirrors a Big4 R&D study.

    Cover · executive summary · methodology · per-year recovery · employee QRE matrix · project-by-project assessment · IRS-reg citations · disclaimer. Hand it to your CPA. They file Form 6765 + the amended return.

    done

§ 04 — software-only pricing

Big-firm R&D specialists charge 15–25% contingency. We don't.

Big4 / alliantgroup / KBKG fees on a $200K refund: $30K–$50K. Our flat fee, even on all 3 years: $1,500.

Per-year amendment

Single year

$499/yr

  • One amendment year (2022, 2023, or 2024)
  • Workpaper PDF + Form 6765 schedule
  • CPA partner directory
  • 14-day "we got it wrong" refund
Pre-order this →

Marginal cost is ~$15 in compute. The price is set against the alternative — a $5K–$50K consulting engagement — not the cost-plus floor.

§ 05 — what people ask

Answers to the ten questions we get most.

Skipping the basics? Hit the eligibility checklist for the long form.

What's the OBBBA §174A election, exactly?

The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act restored immediate domestic R&D expensing AND created a one-time retroactive election: businesses with avg gross receipts ≤$31M over the last 3 years can amend 2022, 2023, and 2024 returns to deduct previously-amortized R&D costs immediately. Combined with the §41 R&D credit, recoveries typically run $50K–$500K. The election deadline is July 6, 2026.

Why hasn't my CPA already done this?

Most CPAs outside the R&D-credit specialty firms are slammed with current-year filings and aren't proactively reaching out about retroactive elections. Industry data suggests ~70% of eligible startups never claimed the §41 credit even before the OBBBA window opened. The window is short and the math is detailed — easy to leave on the table.

What counts as a "Qualified Research Expense" (QRE)?

Per IRS Reg §1.41-4: technological in nature, eliminates uncertainty, follows a process of experimentation, and serves a permitted purpose (new/improved function, performance, reliability, or quality). For software founders, this typically means engineering wages, contract developer fees, and dev/cloud supplies tied to building new features — not maintenance, not customer support, not sales engineering.

Do I still need a CPA to file?

Yes. We never touch the IRS. Section174.app produces the workpaper — the structured supporting document a tax professional needs to actually file Form 6765 and the amended return (Form 1120-X, 1065-X, or 1120-S amended). Don't have a CPA? Our v1 ships with a partner directory of small CPA firms that work with sub-$5M-ARR SaaS founders.

Is my data safe?

Files upload to Cloudflare R2 with per-customer signed URLs. We don't share your data with anyone. Once the workpaper is generated, you can delete the inputs from our system — we keep only the audit-trail metadata you'd need if your CPA has follow-up questions.

What if my recovery estimate is wrong?

The classifier runs conservatively — we'd rather under-claim than over-claim, because a wrong number on an amended return is what gets a CPA to reject the workpaper. If we generate a workpaper your CPA can't file, we refund within 14 days, no questions.

What forms / file types do you support in v1?

Form 1120 (C-Corp), 1065 (partnership), 1120-S (S-Corp) for tax years 2022, 2023, 2024 — US-incorporated entities only. Payroll: any CSV from Gusto, Rippling, ADP, Paychex, or QBO Payroll (we auto-detect column headers). v1 scope is software development R&D only (NAICS 5112). Manufacturing process / biotech / hardware R&D is v2.

What about state R&D credits?

v1 is federal-only. Two states (CA and NJ) have decoupled from the federal §174 amortization rules and require separate state-level analysis — we disclose this in the workpaper and flag it for your CPA. Most other states conform; the federal §41 credit flows through.

What happens after July 6, 2026?

The retroactive amendment window closes. The product transitions to ongoing-year R&D-credit studies for solo and small SaaS founders — the same workpaper, generated each year, at $499/year. The annual subscription locks your rate before that transition.

What about big firms — alliantgroup, KBKG, Strike Tax?

They're great for $5M+ refunds where 15–25% contingency makes sense. For sub-$5M-ARR SaaS founders, their fees price out the long tail — a $200K refund minus a $40K consulting fee minus three months of partner meetings is a different conversation than a $1,500 software fee and a 1-hour upload. Different tools for different stages.

§ 06 — pre-launch

66 days to July 6.
First in line gets 20% off.

We're cutting v1 against the deadline. Drop a line — we'll email you the moment intake opens. No spam, no drip sequence, just one message when it's live.

Email the waitlist →

or send a note to brianchan97hk@gmail.com