R&D Binder

Short answer. Form 6765, Credit for Increasing Research Activities, is the IRS form a business files with its tax return to claim the Section 41 R&D credit. It computes the credit, holds the payroll-tax election for small businesses, and from tax year 2026 carries the per-business-component detail in Section G.

What the form does, section by section

Form 6765 computes the credit and carries the elections. The parts that matter most for a software company:

  • Section A computes the regular credit, which needs gross-receipts and research data going back to the 1980s that most companies do not have.
  • Section B computes the Alternative Simplified Credit, the 14 percent method most startups use because it looks only at recent years.
  • Section D holds the payroll-tax election for qualified small businesses, the way pre-profit companies turn the credit into cash.
  • Section G is the new per-business-component detail, mandatory for non-exempt filers starting tax year 2026.

The new Section G, and who is exempt

Section G is the biggest change to the form in years.

Starting tax year 2026, non-exempt filers have to list each claimed business component on Section G, with nine fields per component covering its name, type, the information sought, and the QRE breakdown. It moves the credit from a single number to a project-by-project schedule an examiner can read.

Qualified small businesses electing the payroll-tax offset are exempt from Section G for now. R&D Binder still produces the Section G map for them, so it is on file the day the company outgrows the carve-out.

What it takes to complete it well

The form is only as defensible as the evidence behind each line.

A vague business-component name, or a QRE figure that cannot be traced to a source, is where an exam starts. The form itself does not capture that evidence; it assumes you already have it.

R&D Binder produces the component names, the nine Section G fields, and a QRE workpaper that reconciles to the form, so the number on the schedule and the number in the supporting file match by construction.

Form 6765 is where the credit is claimed; these cover what fills it in:

Sources

Every claim on this page traces to a primary authority. Each source below is independent and verifiable.

Get documentation built to survive an exam

R&D Binder produces the business-component names, the nine Section G fields, and the reconciled QRE workpaper your CPA transcribes onto Form 6765. Documentation only; your CPA signs and files.

Estimate your credit See the sample binder