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bitsign

Accessibility Tax Information Sheet

Educational summary
IRC §44 · IRS Form 8826

About bitsign

bitsign is communication-accessibility technology designed to provide real-time, two-way translation between sign language and speech. It is built to help businesses communicate more effectively with Deaf and hard-of-hearing customers, patients, and employees, and to strengthen an organization's broader accessibility program.

The federal Disabled Access Credit

The Disabled Access Credit is a nonrefundable federal tax credit for eligible small businesses that incur expenditures to provide access to persons with disabilities. Eligible businesses may take the credit each and every year they incur qualifying access expenditures.

Size test

$1,000,000 or less in gross receipts or 30 or fewer full-time employees, in the preceding tax year.

Calculation

50% of eligible access expenditures over $250, counted up to $10,250 per year.

Maximum credit

$5,000

per year

The credit is elected by filing IRS Form 8826, Disabled Access Credit.

Categories of eligible access expenditures

Per IRS Form 8826, eligible access expenditures include amounts paid or incurred to comply with the ADA, such as:

  • Removing barriers that prevent a business from being accessible to, or usable by, individuals with disabilities.
  • Providing qualified interpreters or other methods of making audio materials available to people with hearing disabilities.
  • Providing readers, taped texts, or other methods of making visual materials available to people with visual disabilities.
  • Acquiring or modifying equipment or devices for individuals with disabilities.

Because bitsign is designed specifically to improve communication access for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, a business may wish to ask its tax adviser whether some or all of a bitsign expenditure qualifies as an eligible access expenditure.

Ordinary business-expense note

Independent of accessibility-specific incentives, accessibility technology used in operating a business may also receive ordinary business-expense treatment, depending on the facts and applicable tax rules. Some software must instead be capitalized, amortized, depreciated, or treated under separate rules. Tax credits and deductions are different, and the same dollars generally cannot receive a double tax benefit. A tax professional can determine the optimal treatment.

Official references