Your 401(k) Plan Has
Unclaimed Tax Credits.

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 created or expanded three federal tax credits for small employers (100 or fewer employees) with retirement plans, all filed on IRS Form 8881.

Employer Contribution Credit (IRC §45T) — Up to $1,000 per eligible employee per year for 5 years. This is typically the largest of the three. For a 50-employee company, that's up to $250,000 from this credit alone.

Plan Startup Credit (IRC §45E) — Covers up to 100% of qualified startup costs, capped at $5,000 per year for the first 3 years. This often offsets the entire cost of establishing and administering the plan.

Auto-Enrollment Credit (IRC §45AA) — $500 per year for up to 3 years for plans that include an eligible automatic contribution arrangement (EACA or QACA).

Combined, an eligible employer could recover up to $266,500 over the full credit window. Actual amounts depend on your plan size, contribution levels, and specific eligibility factors.

A tax deduction reduces your taxable income — so a $10,000 deduction might save you $2,500 in taxes depending on your bracket. A tax credit reduces your actual tax bill dollar for dollar. A $10,000 credit saves you exactly $10,000. That's what makes these SECURE 2.0 credits so valuable — they're not deductions. Every dollar of credit identified is a dollar off your federal tax liability.

Yes — in most cases. If your plan was established in 2023 or 2024 and you didn't claim the credits on your original return, your CPA can file an amended return to recover them. The IRS generally allows amended returns within 3 years of the original filing date. Our filing packages include amended return guidance showing your CPA exactly which form to use (1120-X for C-Corps, 1040-X for sole proprietors, or corrected K-1s for partnerships and S-Corps) and how the credits flow through Form 3800 to reduce your tax liability. Prior-year recovery is often where the largest dollar amounts are — multiple years of unclaimed credits that can be captured in a single engagement.

The credits are designed for employers with 100 or fewer employees who received at least $5,000 in compensation during the preceding year. If you received our letter, your plan was already screened against this threshold using DOL filing data. Plans with 51–100 employees are still eligible but subject to a phase-out that reduces the Startup Credit and Contribution Credit by 2% for each employee above 50. Our credit analysis calculates this phase-out precisely — it's one of the areas where specialized preparation makes the biggest difference.

Every employer-sponsored retirement plan in the United States files an annual Form 5500 or 5500-SF with the Department of Labor — it's a regulatory requirement. These filings are public record and contain plan characteristics, participant counts, contribution data, effective dates, and service provider information. Our proprietary data platform has indexed over 204,000 credit-eligible plans from these filings, cross-referenced against SECURE 2.0 eligibility criteria. If you received our letter, your plan was specifically flagged — with your plan name, effective year, and an estimated credit amount already calculated.

Your engagement is delivered in two milestones. In the first, you receive a Credit Analysis & Eligibility Report — your total credit amount, a year-by-year breakdown across all three credit types, eligibility confirmation, and phase-out analysis if applicable.

In the second, you receive the complete filing package for each eligible tax year: a signature-ready IRS Form 8881 with all fields calculated and pre-filled, a pre-started Form 3800 (General Business Credit) showing how the credits flow to your return, a Sponsor Summary with plain-English filing instructions for each year, and a comprehensive Audit Support Package with the full calculation methodology, DOL data provenance, IRC citations, and eligibility worksheets.

You take the entire package to your CPA or tax preparer. Nothing is left for you to calculate, research, or figure out.

They absolutely can review and file the forms — and that's exactly what we're counting on. What Credit(k) does is the specialized preparation work upfront: pulling the plan data, applying the credit methodology across three IRC sections (§45E, §45T, §45AA), calculating phase-outs, and generating signature-ready Form 8881 packages for each eligible year. The tax code is enormous and changing constantly — SECURE 2.0 alone was 350+ pages of new provisions. These credits are a narrow specialty within it. We handle that depth so your CPA receives a complete, documented package they can review, validate, and file with confidence. Many CPAs see this as a valuable resource — it lets them deliver a meaningful credit to their clients without diverting time from the rest of their practice.

From signed engagement to delivery of your complete filing packages, most engagements are completed within 5–10 business days. The Credit Analysis (Milestone 1) is typically delivered within 3–5 business days of the escrow being funded. The complete filing packages (Milestone 2) follow shortly after. If your engagement involves multiple prior tax years with amended returns, we prepare all years in parallel — you won't wait longer for three years of filings than for one.

Very little. Because we source most of the required data directly from your public Form 5500 filings, we already have your plan name, effective date, participant counts, contribution data, and service providers. We may ask you to confirm a few details — such as whether your plan includes auto-enrollment (EACA/QACA), your business entity type for amended return guidance, and the total contributions made by employees earning under $100,000 (which affects the Employer Contribution Credit). Your TPA or payroll provider typically has this information readily available.

Your CPA or tax preparer handles all IRS correspondence — Credit(k) does not file returns or represent you before the IRS. However, our Audit Support Package is specifically designed for this scenario. It provides your tax professional with the complete documentation workbook: the step-by-step calculation methodology for each credit type, DOL data provenance showing where every input number originated, IRC citations for each eligibility determination, phase-out worksheets with the arithmetic laid out, and an eligibility checklist with pass/fail documentation. It's everything a CPA would need to respond to an IRS inquiry without having to reconstruct any of the analysis from scratch.

The upfront fee funds the specialized credit analysis and Form 8881 preparation across your full 5-year credit window — including amended returns for any prior tax years. This is substantive, plan-specific work that begins immediately upon engagement.

That said, your payment never goes to Credit(k). It goes directly into a licensed escrow account held by Escrow.com — a regulated third-party service incorporated by Fidelity National Financial. Funds are released in two equal milestones, each only after you've had the opportunity to review the deliverables. If we fail to deliver, the escrow returns your funds — no negotiations, no phone calls.

Upfront-fee credit preparation services are well-established in the tax credit recovery industry, used by firms across the R&D credit and ERC spaces for years. The escrow layer adds a level of protection most of them don't offer.

Escrow.com is a licensed, regulated escrow service originally incorporated in 1999 by Fidelity National Financial — one of the largest financial services companies in the world. They've protected over $5 billion in transactions, are licensed in all required U.S. states, and are regularly audited for compliance. They are the winner of the BBB Torch Award for Ethics.

When you pay your Credit(k) fee, it goes directly to Escrow.com's trust account — not to us. The funds are legally owned by you until each milestone is accepted. If you're not satisfied with a deliverable during the 3-day review window, the escrow process protects you with formal dispute resolution, including mediation and third-party arbitration through the American Arbitration Association or JAMS if needed. It's the same mechanism used in real estate closings and large business transactions — applied here to give you complete transparency over every dollar.

After you sign the engagement letter, you'll receive a secure payment link from Escrow.com. You fund the full engagement fee via bank wire or ACH transfer — directly to Escrow.com's trust account, not to Credit(k). Your fee is then released in two equal milestones: 50% when we deliver your Credit Analysis & Eligibility Report, and 50% when we deliver the complete filing packages for each eligible tax year. Each milestone has a 3-day review window — if you take no action, it auto-accepts and funds release. You can track the status of your transaction in Escrow.com's portal at any time.

Each milestone has a 3-day review period during which you can accept or raise a concern directly through Escrow.com. If there's a legitimate issue with the deliverable — incorrect data, missing tax years, or packages that don't match the engagement scope — the escrow agent holds the funds while the issue is resolved. Escrow.com provides a formal dispute resolution process with a 14-day negotiation period followed by third-party arbitration if needed. Our 100% money-back guarantee means we stand behind every package we deliver. We only succeed when you do.

No. Credit(k) LLC is a credit calculation and form preparation service — not a CPA firm, tax advisor, or return preparer. We do not file returns, sign forms, or represent you before the IRS. We prepare the complete filing package — signature-ready forms, supporting schedules, and audit documentation — and deliver it to you. You take it to your own CPA or tax preparer, who reviews it, validates the numbers against your actual return, and files it. This structure keeps us focused on what we do best (the specialized credit work) and ensures your tax professional maintains full control of your filing.

Every employer-sponsored retirement plan in the U.S. files an annual Form 5500 with the Department of Labor. These filings are public record. Our data platform indexes every filing and applies SECURE 2.0 eligibility criteria to identify plans that qualify for credits — including your plan's effective date, participant count, contribution data, and employer information. We didn't access any private records. The same data is available to anyone at the DOL's EFAST2 database — we simply built the technology to analyze it at scale and connect it to the specific credit calculations that apply to your plan.