Federal Incentives That Can Show You the Money
As the country continues to fight its way out of the economic downturn, businesses and their owners are constantly looking for ways to increase cash flow. Several Federal tax incentives are available to help you meet this goal. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be in a high-tech industry to benefit from the Research and Experimentation Credit. Nor do you need to place in service an entire “green” building to benefit from the Energy Efficient Commercial Buildings Deduction or other energy incentives. Even if your business currently isn’t producing taxable income, you may still be able to use these incentives to recover taxes paid in prior years or shelter future taxable income.
This presentation discusses key elements of:
• Research and Development Tax Credits
• Domestic Production Activities Deduction
• Energy Efficient Building Deduction
Michael Silvio is Managing Director with CBIZ MHM, LLC. He leads the San Diego and Orange
County offices’ Research & Development (R&D) and Energy Incentives Tax Credit Services Group.
Visit http://www.cbiz.com for more information or http://www.cbiz.com/page.asp?pid=9199.
1. Federal Incentives That Can Show You the Money
Presented by
Michael Silvio, CPA
Managing Director, CBIZ MHM, LLC.
2. Strategic Edge Series
• Seven Core Principles to Maximize the Value of Your Business
During Its Life and Upon its Sale – May 18th
• Creative Compensation Strategies to Maintain Morale and Retain
Talent – June 22nd
• Don’t Be Held Captive: Go Captive to Manage Your Risk and
Expenses – July 20th
• Federal Incentives That Can Show You the Money – August 17th
• Protecting Your Legacy with Succession Planning – September 21st
• State Tax Nexus: No Physical Presence Required – October 26th
All these webinars are from 2:00 – 3:00 ET. Here is the link for
registration for any of these webinars - www.cbiz.com/strategicedge
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3. Michael Silvio, CPA
Michael Silvio is Managing Director with CBIZ MHM, LLC. He leads the San Diego and Orange
County offices’ Research & Development (R&D) and Energy Incentives Tax Credit Services Group.
Michael has more than 20 years of experience in public accounting and tax and has served a variety
of businesses in the manufacturing, construction, professional service and not-for-profit industries.
Michael’s primary focus is in R&D tax credit and tax incentives areas. He has conducted over 250
research credit studies for numerous companies in various industries, and has served as a
representative before the IRS and state taxing authorities to support and defend numerous research
credit claims for taxpayers.
He also has experience in financial accounting, reporting and management, auditing, and individual
and business income tax. Michael has supervised compilations, audits and reviews for various
clients, including small and medium sized businesses, in addition to providing income tax planning,
consulting and compilation services.
Michael is a CPA certified in California. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. He has a Bachelor of Arts in
business administration with an emphasis in accounting from California State Polytechnic University
in Pomona. Throughout his career he has authored several publications and conducted numerous
presentations on current tax legislation, R&D tax credit, energy incentive issues and other tax related
business incentives. He has also spoken to organizations such as the California Society of CPA’s, the
National Association of Manufacturers, the R&D Credit Coalition in Washington, D.C., and the
American Bar Association. 3
4. • As required by U.S. Treasury rules, we inform you that, unless expressly
stated otherwise, any U.S. federal or state tax advice contained in this
presentation, including charts or graphs, etc., is not intended or written to
be used, and cannot be used, by any person for the purpose of avoiding
any penalties that may be imposed by the Internal Revenue Service or state
tax authorities.
• Certain portions of the presentation materials have been taken from various
articles and information prepared by other sources.
• The information in this presentation contains trade secrets and confidential
and proprietary information belonging to CBIZ and Mayer Hoffman McCann
P.C or others. As a result, the information in this presentation is not to be
disclosed, duplicated or disseminated in any way or any purpose other than
your evaluation.
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5. Agenda
• Research and Development Tax Credits
• Domestic Production Activities Deduction
• Energy Efficient Building Deduction
• Summary/Key Takeaways
• Questions
7. The Federal Research Credit : Technical
Aspects Governed by IRC Sections 41 and 174
• Federal credit is 20% of qualified costs over baseline for
activities performed with U.S.
• Various states have various credit provision for R & D
performed within the state and are changing on a continuous
basis.
Methods of calculation:
•Traditional Method
•Alternative Simplified Credit (Fed only)
•Various State Methods
Reduced credit can be elected (IRC 280C); TD 9539
• Fed: Can be carried back 1 year and carried forward 20
years; for 2010, carry back is 5 years as ESB credit
• Carry back and carry forward provision vary by state
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8. The Research and Development Tax Credit
The Four Part Test (IRC 41)
• The Section 174 Test (IRC 174)
– In Connection with a Trade or Business
– Discover information to Eliminate Uncertainty-Experimental in
Nature
• New or Improved Business Component Test
• Process of Experimentation Test
• Technological in Nature Test
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9. The Research Process: Qualifying Activities
Concept
Product or Process
Research and Development Activities
Design/Engineering
Innovation/Experimentation
Prototyping and Testing
Foreign Outsourcing Domestic Outsourcing
Design Design
Fabrication/Prototyping Fabrication/Prototyping
Finished Product or Process
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10. Industries that have qualifying research
and development
• Adhesives • Equipment
• Aerospace • Financial Services
• Apparel • Food manufacturers/processors
• Automotive • Furniture
• Agriculture • Healthcare products
• Biomedical • High Tech
• Biotech • Life Science
• Defense • Lubricants
• Energy • Medical Devices
• Engineering: Environmental, • Paper Products
Civil, Architectural • Software Developers
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11. Research and Development Tax Credit:
Qualified Costs Included
Wages, excluding any fringe benefits, of employees
directly engaged in the research, or that provide direct
supervision or support of the research. This amount can be
found on line 1 of the form W-2.
Supplies, excluding land and depreciable property. These
supplies must be consumed in the performance of the
research activities. Certain overhead costs can be included
such as rent and utilities and telephone expenses.
Outside services incurred during the research process.
Only 65% of these costs are eligible for the credit. These
costs include outside consultants, software programmers
and engineers, outside tool and die makers, etc.
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12. Some Thoughts on Funded Research:
To take the credit, it must not be “funded;” This involves
two concepts:
The business must be at risk on its
investment in the research and
The business must retain substantial rights
in the results of the research
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14. Tier I Internal Revenue Service Issue
• R&D Credits have become a Tier I issue with the Large
and Mid-Sized Business Division of the IRS
• There will be more audits with a higher level of scrutiny
• Agents must adhere to following guidelines now:
– IRS Industry Directives and Guidelines
– R&D Audit Technique Guide (Released May 30, 2008)
– Notice 2002-44
– Use of R&D Technical Advisors
• Four Primary Areas of IRS Concern
– High-level estimates
– Biased judgment samples
– Lack of nexus between the business component and
qualified research expenses (QREs)
– Inadequate contemporaneous documentation
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15. Tier I Internal Revenue Service Issue
Potential remedies to combat the Tier I issue and to document and substantiate
credits taken:
• Establish Procedures and Tools for Capturing and Maximizing Future Credits
• Revisit Fixed Base Percentage determination
• Have researchers/client personnel spend time documenting how they arrived at the R&D
percentage qualifications used in determining the qualified research expenses
• Break out time into appropriate categories—by person.
•Attempt to identify the largest projects that individual cost centers
work on. Try to support this determination with work plans, payroll
records, etc.
•Reliance on the recollection of a department head should be
your last resort.
•For documentation, use material originally prepared for non-tax
reasons, if you can. Engineers are often “pack rats.” You might be
surprised at the type of details that they retain.
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16. Prequalify Your R&D Costs and Employees
• Need to identify which employees are part of the R&D
process.
– Start with the employees performing R&D services
– Identify the Not-so-Obvious employees (CEO, Sales persons,
Production)
• Supplies
• Outside Contractors
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17. Proper Record Keeping
• The ideal methodology to support proper record keeping
is:
Contemporaneous
Documentation
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18. Research and Development Tax Credit- 2009 -
2011
A number of important court decisions were handed down in the
past 50 months. Here are a few:
Union Carbide v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2009-50 (March 10, 2009)
U.S. v. McFerrin, 570 F. 3d 672 (5th Circ June 9, 2009)
Trinity Industries, Inc. v. United States, 691 F.Supp.2d 688 (January 29, 2010)
The majority of these decisions were victories for the taxpayer
Some of the areas that these cases provided guidance included:
• Level of documentation
• Internal Use Software Tests
• Supplies expense and depreciable items
• Discovery Test
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20. Basic Deduction Computation
• Effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2004
• Deduction is calculated as follows:
1. Determine Qualified Production Activities Income (QPAI)
2. Compare QPAI to Taxable Income and take the lesser of the
two amounts
3. Multiply the lesser amount by the statutory deduction rate (3%,
6% or 9%)
4. Compare this amount to 50% of total annual W-2 Wages
5. The lesser of these two amounts is the allowable Section 199
Deduction
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21. Phase-In of Deduction Rate
Taxable Deduction
year Rate
2005 3%
2006 3%
2007 6%
2008 6%
2009 6%
2010 and later 9%
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22. Determination of Qualified Production
Activities Income (QPAI)
• Allocated Domestic Production Gross Receipts (DPGR)
• Minus Allocable Expenses
– Cost of goods sold
– Deductions, expenses, and losses directly allocable
– Ratable portion of other deductions, expenses and losses
• Equals QPAI
• QPAI determined on an “item-by-item” basis
• An “item” may constitute one or more of a finished product’s
component parts, tasks or subtasks that meets all of Code Sec.
199’s requirements, even if the entire final product does not satisfy
those requirements.
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23. Domestic Production Gross Receipts
To view the rest of this presentation, please contact the author,
Mike Silvio at msilvio@cbiz.com
or http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsilviocpa.
Thank you!
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