Updated September 7, 2026
The July 6, 2026 deadline to file amended returns or administrative adjustment requests for the small-business Section 174A retroactive election has passed. Revenue Procedure 2025-28 treated Monday, July 6, 2026 as the last day to make that election on an amended return or AAR, because the statutory one-year date, July 4, 2026, fell on a Saturday. The procedure did not change ordinary refund-claim time limits, and this update does not create a new deadline, extension, or refund right.
This article originally explained a then-open window for eligible small businesses to apply immediate expensing of domestic research and experimental (R&E) costs back to 2022 through 2024. That history still matters. What closed on July 6 is the amended-return path for that retroactive election — not current-year Section 174A, and not a separate transition election for remaining unamortized amounts.
What the closed election was
From 2022 through 2024, Section 174 required U.S. businesses to capitalize and amortize R&E costs over five years (fifteen for foreign R&E) instead of deducting them in the year incurred. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) added Section 174A, restoring a current-year deduction for domestic R&E paid or incurred in tax years beginning after December 31, 2024.
Eligible small businesses had a one-time chance to apply Section 174A retroactively to amounts paid or incurred in tax years beginning after December 31, 2021, and before January 1, 2025. For some 2022 years, the ordinary claim period ended before July 6. The IRS explains how long you have to claim a credit or refund as generally the later of three years from the date you filed the return or two years from the date you paid the tax. IRS sources published as of this update do not extend the small-business amended-return election. Missing it is not automatic late relief.
Current-year 174A is a separate rule
The 2025 Instructions for Form 4562 describe current-year treatment. Domestic R&E paid or incurred in tax years beginning after December 31, 2024, is generally deductible as a current business expense, unless you elect to capitalize and amortize it. That deduction is not a substitute for the closed 2022–2024 refund election.
Remaining unamortized amounts are a separate, filing-dependent election
Remaining unamortized domestic R&E from tax years beginning after December 31, 2021, and before January 1, 2025, may be recovered under a transition method. The same Form 4562 instructions, with Rev. Proc. 2025-28, allow a taxpayer to elect to recover that remaining balance in full in the first tax year beginning after December 31, 2024, or ratably over the two-tax-year period beginning with that year.
Eligibility depends on the taxpayer’s filing situation — typically whether the return for the first tax year beginning after December 31, 2024 (calendar year 2025 for many brands) can still carry that method change. If that return is already filed, do not assume an amended return recreates either this transition treatment or the expired July 6 refund election.
What to do now
If you already filed a timely amended return or AAR before the applicable deadline, review processing status and keep the supporting records.
If you missed the election, ask a CPA whether current-year domestic R&E belongs on the original return for that year, and whether remaining-balance transition treatment still applies to an eligible 2025 return. Neither question reopens the July 6, 2026 amended-return election or guarantees a refund of 2022–2024 tax.
This is general information about published IRS procedures, not tax advice for your facts. A qualified tax professional should review your filed returns before you change a method or claim a deduction.
Sources
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