You Can Still Claim R&D Tax Credits.
What Ended on July 6, 2026
If you’ve followed R&D tax news this year, you’ve heard that there was a “hard and fast deadline” on July 6, 2026. While this may sound cut and dry, the deadline does not mean you can’t continue to file for R&D tax credits. Thea deadline came from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-28, which set the rules for putting the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into practice.
The July 6 deadline refers to two things only, and nothing outside of it.
The small business retroactive election. Qualifying small businesses could go back to tax years 2022 through 2024 and switch from amortizing their domestic research expenses to deducting them immediately under the new IRC §174A.
Related §280C(c)(2) elections. Businesses making that retroactive move could also make, or revoke, the election that coordinates the research deduction with the research credit for those same prior years.
Those elections had to be made on an amended return of administrative adjustment request by the earlier of July 6, 2026, or the refund statute deadline for the year in question. That is the window that closed, not the R&D tax credit as a whole.
The Credit Under §41 Did Not Go Anywhere
This is the part that gets lost in the deadline noise. The research and development tax credit lives in IRC §41, and is a permanent, standing feature of the federal tax code that applies to any year you perform qualifying research. Congress made it permanent, so it does not expire, and businesses can, and should, continue to claim the credit if they qualify.
You Can Still Reach Back and Amend Open Years
Missing a credit in a prior year does not mean that the credit is gone. The general rule for claiming a credit or refund lives in IRC §6511, and states that a claim must be filed within the later of three years from when you filed the return or two years from when you paid the tax.
In plain terms, your recently filed years may still be open to your business. A 2024 return filed in the spring of 2025, for example, generally stays open for an amended claim into 2028. That leaves an opportunity to go back and document qualifying work that you did not previously claim, and file an amended return for the credit.
Note: your exact window depends on when you filed and paid for each year, which includes any extensions. The sooner you look, the more you can recover, and a specialist can confirm precisely which of your years are still open, and which should be the priority.
Going Forward, Immediate Expensing is the Law
There is more good news buried under the deadline. The reason the retroactive election mattered so much is that from 2022 to 2024, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) forced businesses to amortize their domestic research expenses over five years instead of taking them right away. That squeezed cash flow for the companies doing the most innovation.
OBBBA fixed that going forward. Under IRC §174A, for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024, businesses deduct their domestic research expenses in full the year they incur them. This applies to companies of all sizes and does not require any special retroactive election.
Larger companies that still carry unamortized research costs from 2022 through 2024 have options to recover those balances, either fully in 2025, or spread across 2025 and 2026, handled on the 2025 return.
Documentation Still Decides Whether You Keep the Credit
The credit being available is one thing, but substantiation is essential to claiming it. The recent Tax Court decision in George v Commissioner (T.C. Memo 2026-10) made that point: the taxpayer won on the law, establishing that its research qualified, but lost a significant portion of the credit because the records were not deemed thorough enough to support the full claim.
Although that ruling may make documentation seem daunting, it does not have to be. Records are often available in non-scientific notes, employee payroll records, and other contemporaneous records that R&D tax credit specialists are qualified to look for and compile on behalf of your company.
What to do Now
1. Look at your current year first. Identify the qualifying research your team is doing so you can determine what to claim on this year’s return.
2. Review your open prior years. Check which recent years are still inside the §6511 window and whether you left credits on the table that you may still be able to claim.
3. Pull your records. Project notes, payroll detail, contractor invoices, and supply costs all support a defensible claim.
4. Talk to a specialist before older years close. The window narrows every filing season, and it’s important to work with someone who is highly qualified to take this work off your team’s hands and compile a claim in a timely and compliant way.
What RK Partners Can do for You
R&D tax credits involve a narrow, technical area of the tax code, and they are the only tax credits that RK supports. That means we know what the IRS looks for, how to document a claim properly, and where credits get missed.
We identify qualifying work for companies that they didn’t realize would count, including for businesses that already had consultants looking at their claim. We do all the technical interviews and the documentation, working alongside your CPA to build a claim that we can stand behind.
The July 6 deadline is behind us, but the R&D tax credit is not. If you’re doing the work, there is very likely a credit waiting for you. We offer no-risk consultations to help figure out what you may qualify for this year and for the open years still available to you.
