Credit for Employer-Provided Childcare Facilities and Services - Form 8882

You can claim a credit for 25% of your expenditures for qualified childcare facilities for your employees, plus 10% of your qualified expenses in finding childcare facilities and referring your employees to them.  Qualified childcare facility expenditures include amounts you pay or incur to acquire or construct your own childcare facility or to rehabilitate or expand it; your expenses to operate the facility; or amounts paid under a contract with an outside facility to provide childcare services.  In order to qualify, the childcare facility must meet all state and local government requirements and must be licensed as a childcare facility.  It must be open to all employees, and if childcare is your principal business, at least 30% of the enrollees must be dependents or employees of your business.

Credit for Increasing Research Activities - Form 6765

This credit is intended to stimulate spending on research and experimental activities.  Qualified research and development expenditures are defined under section 174 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC).  Substantially all the research activities must be part of an experimentation process leading to a new or improved business function, performance, reliability, or quality.  The credit is 20% of the amount over your base amount, as defined in section 41(e) of the IRC.

Credit for Small Employer Pension Startup Costs - Form 8881

This is a credit for 50% of the costs, up to $1,000, paid or incurred to start up a pension plan for your employees, including a 401(k), SIMPLE plan, or SEP plan.  The credit is limited to $500 the first year you take the credit, and up to $500 for each of the following two years.  Qualified start-up costs include expenses to establish and administer the plan, and expenses to educate employees about the plan’s retirement benefits.