The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 passed in the House by a vote of 357 to 70 on Wednesday. The bill will help restore much of the Covid-Era Child Tax Credit and will rewrite part of the Trump-Era change to R&D Taxes that had made domestic R&D costs prohibitively expensive for innovative American companies. Whether the Senate approves the bill remains up in the air.
Starting with the 2023 tax year, a qualified small business may elect to claim up to $500,000 of its credit for increasing research activities as a payroll tax credit. Previously, taxpayers could only claim up to $250,000.
For any S-Corp — defined by the IRS as “corporations that elect to pass corporate income, losses, deductions, and credits through to their shareholders for federal tax purposes” — the extension tax deadline is September 15, 2023. So, now is the time to get your books in order and to file your R&D tax credit.