The Tax Navigator – R&D Credits and USPS Postmark Rule Updates

Join Sean Muller, The Tax Navigator, as he discusses R&D expenditure write-offs for large corporations and changes to USPS postmarking procedures that could impact paper tax payments. He also advises taxpayers to transition to electronic payment systems to avoid potential penalties.

For information or assistance, contact us. We are here to help.

©2026

Detailed Description of The Tax Navigator – R&D Credits and USPS Postmark Rule Updates

00:00:00
Sean: So, this is the last week that Congress is in session. They didn’t really make a whole lot of progress.

00:00:06
Sean: The premium tax credit the Republicans were trying to push through, got voted down. There’s a few things they’re going to try to knock out this week, but now it appears that they’re just going to lick their wounds and know they didn’t get as much done as they needed to for 2025.

00:00:21
Sean: On auto loan, we’ve talked about it before. The IRS certainly relaxed all the rules on reporting. The lenders are very concerned right now that they need to be determining if a borrower actually applies for the rules.

00:00:36
Sean: And so, they’re worried, what do I have to apply? Do I have to get income information? Etc.

But if they end up determining that the actual taxpayer determines if they qualify or not, then they’ll be off the hook. Did not really notice that in the rules, but that’s what lenders are concerned about right now.

00:00:53
Sean: One thing with the R&D expenditures write-off in 2025, or ratably over 2025, or 2026, is large taxpayers. And these are taxpayers that make over $1 billion a year, are subject to this 15% corporate minimum tax.

00:01:09
Sean: And they’re actually concerned that their R&D expenditures are so high that if they take a write-off, it’s actually going to cause them to fall at this 15% tax.

00:01:20
Sean: So, some of these taxpayers are arguing that they need a break to take all these R&D expenditures they’ve been capitalizing for the last three years. And the Democrats have come back and said, that’s ridiculous. You owe your 15%. Let’s not change any rules around that.

00:01:34
Sean: We’ve talked about it before, but we need to start making electronic payments. The IRS hasn’t come out with rules determining how you make these electronic payments.

00:01:44
Sean: But news came out yesterday, sort of a reminder, the U.S. Postal Service changed their rules back in August, and they changed their postmark date. You used to be able to go to the post office, and whatever date you dropped it off would be the date it’d be postmarked, and the IRS accepted that as timely filed based on the postmark date.

00:02:03
Sean: So, you used to have this float where you could mail your payment on January 15^th for the fourth quarter payment, mail it out on January 15^th, postmark January 15^th, and then the IRS wouldn’t get it from there for four or five days. So, you get that four or five day float, if you’re not making an electronic payment.

00:02:20
Sean: Well, U.S. Postal Service changed their rules in August where the postmark actually gets applied at the processing center, and so that could actually be a day or two later. So, for those of you that are still making paper payments on January 15^th, they may not deem to be timely.

00:02:34
Sean: If you mail it out on January 15, you may want to mail it out on January 10^th, 11^th or 12^th to make sure it’s postmarked in time to do that. But I still recommend you set up electronic payments because that’s where we’re going in this system.

00:02:47
Sean: So, as we head into the rest of the year, that’s about it.

This episode of The Tax Navigator was recorded prior to publication. Some references or updates discussed may reflect information current as of the recording date.