For CPA and accounting firms
We identify qualifying activities, compile required documentation, and generate forms for filing. We work as your referral partner or under your firm's brand.
Clayton Vaughn · R&D Tax Lead
Figures from one client study. Not a projection for your client.
12
years in business
$70M
in credits issued
$90K
average R&D tax credit
Why firms partner
Most firms handle this one of two ways: turn the question away, or send it to someone who wants the rest of the relationship too. There is a third option.
Your clients already ask about R&D credits. Answering today means hiring a specialist, buying software, and carrying the risk of a claim you can't fully defend, all for a service that is a fraction of your revenue. A partnership gets you the answer without the practice.
The alternative is referring the client to a credit shop that also sells bookkeeping, tax prep and advisory. That introduction is how firms lose clients. Ours is the only firm in the room with a contractual reason not to.
Every claim is built by people who do this and nothing else, and every number traces to a wage row, a GL transaction or a contractor bill. If a client is examined, the substantiation already exists.
Two ways to work together
Same work, same team, same study. The difference is whose logo is on it and who owns the client conversation.
You introduce the client, we run the engagement in our name, you stay in the loop on everything we send them. Simplest to start: no new process on your side.
The work ships under your brand. Your client sees your firm delivering the credit; we're the team behind it. You control pricing and the client relationship end to end.
Pick your route
Read whichever one you would actually run. The work underneath is identical; what changes is whose name is on it and who prices it.
Referral
We deliver the study under the TaxCreditVisor name. You stay informed at every step, and you earn a referral fee on completed work.
R&D tax credits
Claim your full R&D tax credit.
Up to $500K a year against payroll taxes
How it works
Flag a client doing product, software or process development. A short call confirms whether the work is likely to qualify.
We size the credit and quote a fixed fee before any work begins, with no surprises for you or for the client.
Interviews, qualified expense analysis and audit-ready documentation, under the TaxCreditVisor name and with you copied throughout.
Forms are prepared for the client's return, you stay in the loop, and your referral fee is paid on completion.
White-label
Your firm offers R&D tax credits as its own service. Our team runs the studies behind the scenes, and every deliverable your client touches carries your brand: the portal, the study, the forms.
R&D tax credits
Claim your full R&D tax credit.
Up to $500K a year against payroll taxes
How it works
Your client uploads payroll, contractor costs, cloud hosting fees and project details through a secure portal carrying your brand. Most gather everything in under an hour.
TaxCreditVisor specialists test each project against the IRS four-part test and build time and cost allocations from your client's existing timesheets or a guided questionnaire.
Federal and state credits are calculated in specialist tax credit software, with two rounds of expert review. No spreadsheet arithmetic.
Finalized Forms 6765 and 8974 are delivered with the audit-ready documentation package, ready for your team to file.
Partner economics
The routes differ in whose name is on the work and who prices it. Everything below the fee line is identical, because it is the same team running the same study either way.
| Referral | White-label | |
|---|---|---|
| Client-facing brand | TaxCreditVisor | Your firm |
| Fee | Set in your agreement | 10% of creditMarket rate is 15–20%, so you keep a 33–50% margin |
| Who sets the client price | We do, at a fixed fee | You do |
| Access to the R&D credit portal | Included | Included |
| Studies managed end to end | Included | Included |
| Audit-ready documentation package | Included | Included |
| Non-poaching commitment, in writing | Included | Included |
Every study is quoted as a fixed fee after a short scoping call, before any work begins. Eligibility and the size of the credit depend on the client's revenue, age, and the nature of the work.
What your client sees
White-label partners get a client-facing workspace carrying their own brand: engagement status, document requests, and the finished study in one place. Your client never sees a third party in the workflow, because as far as the engagement is concerned, there isn't one.
Questionnaire status
Active engagements
Named examples only: 9 of 22 engagements.
Open tasks
of 4 done
The partner portal, carrying your firm's brand. Illustrative data.
Qualified research expense
Tax year to date
$1.24M
Federal credit
$124,000
Payroll offset
Applied per quarter
$37,500
The practice behind it: senior accountants working in one system, not six spreadsheets. Figures shown are illustrative.
The work
A credit is only worth what survives examination. Every number we produce traces back to a wage row, a GL transaction, or a contractor bill.
We apply the §41 four-part test activity by activity: permitted purpose, technological in nature, elimination of uncertainty, process of experimentation. Product and platform engineering usually qualifies. Market research and routine customization don't, and we say so.
W-2 wages weighted by each employee's actual research participation, supplies consumed in research, contract research at 65%, and the cloud compute attributable to R&D.
We compute the credit using both methods available. We apportion QREs by state and run the roughly 36 state credits that apply.
A qualified small business can apply the federal credit against the employer share of FICA instead of income tax (§41(h)/§3111(f)), claimed on Form 8974 with the quarterly 941. That's what makes the credit cash rather than just a deferral for a pre-profit client.
Research spending capitalizes and amortizes: 5 years domestic, 15 foreign. We surface the §174 impact alongside the credit and hand it to whoever prepares the return. That's you.
We deliver a comprehensive final report that details each of the qualified business components per year. Additionally, it outlines each of the cost categories being considered as QREs for all projects.
Where we stop
We built this as a single-service practice on purpose. The whole model breaks if partners can't trust the boundary, so we put it in writing before you introduce anyone.
We provide R&D tax credit services only, to clients introduced through the partnership.
We don't pitch, quote, or accept accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation, or advisory work from your clients. Inbound requests come back to you.
We don't market to your client list. No newsletters, no sequences, no ads.
These commitments go into the partnership agreement, not just onto this page.
If a client of yours asks us to do more, our answer is a warm introduction back to your firm.
The process
We pull from payroll and the ledger, so most of the documentation you'd expect to chase, we assemble ourselves.
You send us the client, or loop us into a call. No engagement yet.
We look at payroll and the books and come back with a conservative estimate of the credit. If it isn't worth doing, we tell you that.
A standalone engagement letter for the credit, for that tax year, under your brand or ours.
We assemble around 90% of it from data. Your client's engineering lead gives us an hour or two to talk through what the year actually looked like.
Credit computation, Form 6765 package, and the study. For pre-profit clients, we help load the payroll offset into your payroll provider so the benefit lands as payroll runs.
10–15%
of qualified US engineering spend typically comes back
~90%
of the work we assemble from payroll and ledger data
1–2 hrs
of your client's engineering time, total
36
state credits reviewed alongside the federal claim
Estimates are illustrative, not a guarantee. Eligibility depends on revenue, company age, and the nature of the work.
Who you'd be working with
Clayton leads TaxCreditVisor's R&D tax credit practice and is the direct contact for every firm in the partnership program. His background is R&D tax consulting: credit studies across pre-revenue startups through established manufacturers.
He scopes each client you introduce himself: a short eligibility call, a conservative estimate of the credit, and a fixed fee, all before any work starts. If the credit isn't worth claiming, that call is where you'll hear it.
Clayton VaughnR&D Tax Lead, TaxCreditVisor
12 yrs
years serving venture-backed companies
$70M
in R&D credits issued for clients
$90K
average R&D credit per qualifying client
200+
founders and finance teams supported
One call to scope your first client. Referral or white-label, your call.
Start a conversation
We'll come back with the model that fits, the economics, and a sample of what your client would receive. No obligation, and nothing goes to any client of yours.