Most MSPs treat innovation as overhead—payroll burned in the name of “better delivery”—instead of an asset that can be measured, defended, and monetized. In this episode of From the Trenches on the BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson sits down with Val Majewski of American Incentive Advisors to unpack one of the most consistently overlooked financial levers available to MSPs: the R&D tax credit. Not as a “tax play,” but as executive-level capital allocation. Most MSPs invest real payroll into technical uncertainty—designing onboarding systems, building automations, creating repeatable remediation workflows, and integrating platforms into a coherent delivery engine. The problem is not that MSPs don’t innovate. The problem is that they rarely treat that innovation as an asset that should be measured, defended, and monetized. If your firm is working to move from reactive service to intentional operations—especially at the growth stages covered in our 3–15M MSP growth guidance—this conversation pairs naturally with how we think about building leverage inside account management cadence and protecting margin through clean recurring-revenue structure.
Val’s perspective is grounded in specialty tax work and a simple observation: most business owners assume “R&D” only applies to lab coats and manufacturing floors, so they self-disqualify before the IRS ever evaluates the facts. In practice, eligibility often comes down to whether your team is resolving technical uncertainty through a disciplined, iterative process—and whether you can document that process in a defensible way. The timing element matters too. Separate from the credit itself, recent shifts around domestic research expensing have made many owners revisit 2022–2024 decisions with their advisors, and in some cases there are election-style deadlines in mid-2026 that can influence how prior-year domestic R&D costs are handled. To be clear: the §41 R&D credit and the §174 research expensing rules are related but distinct—the credit rewards qualified activities, while §174 governs how certain research/software costs are capitalized and amortized, and most “2026 deadline” discussions show up on the §174 side. Combine that with the normal statute-of-limitations realities on amended returns, and the leadership takeaway is straightforward: if you want the option, you need to do the work while the window is still open. Waiting doesn’t make the decision safer—it usually just removes it.
One of the most important themes in this episode is self-censorship. Many MSP owners assume they do not qualify for R&D credits because they are not “inventing” something tangible. Val explains that this assumption is often wrong. The IRS evaluates R&D eligibility based on process improvement, technical uncertainty, and iterative development—not on industry labels.
MSPs frequently invest time and payroll dollars into improving onboarding workflows, automating remediation, integrating platforms, testing scripts, and refining service delivery models. Those efforts are rarely accidental—and they are often expensive. Ignoring them from a tax perspective is not conservative; it is uninformed. Conservative is documenting the work, mapping it to the rules, and only claiming what you can support.
This conversation reframes the R&D credit away from “saving money” and toward “funding progress.” When credits are recovered or applied correctly, they create cash flow that can be redeployed into leadership capacity, tooling, documentation, security maturity, and operating cadence—the unglamorous systems that stop growth from collapsing into chaos.
That distinction matters. Mature MSPs do not grow by cutting corners—they grow by reinvesting in the systems that reduce variance and increase leverage. Used properly, the R&D credit becomes one of the few non-dilutive ways to underwrite the kind of operational work most owners say they “can’t afford” until they’re forced to.
Val draws a clear distinction between general tax preparation and specialty tax work. Most CPAs are not specialists in R&D credits, just as general practitioners are not cardiologists. The absence of advice is not evidence of ineligibility.
For MSPs that already work with fractional CFOs or advisory partners, this episode reinforces a broader principle: specialization matters. Strategic firms assemble expertise instead of assuming one role covers every domain. If you’re going to treat operations like a discipline, you should treat tax strategy the same way—measured, documented, and run with the right people in the room.
Val Majewski is a partner at American Incentive Advisors, a tax consulting firm specializing in R&D credits and other incentive programs. Before entering tax consulting, Val spent a decade as a professional baseball player, an experience that shaped his approach to discipline, resilience, and long-term thinking. Today, he works with business owners across industries to help them legally reduce tax liability and redeploy that capital into growth, hiring, and operational capability.
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Josh Peterson is a Partner at Bering McKinley and the creator of Vision, a management operating system built specifically for MSPs. With over two decades of experience in the channel, Josh has worked with thousands of IT providers—from early-stage startups to $50M+ firms—on the core disciplines of leadership, service, finance, and process. He’s known for his unfiltered honesty, his strategic clarity, and his ability to bring owners back to what really matters. Whether you’re trying to build a company or reclaim one, Josh brings a point of view worth hearing.
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If you are an MSP owner investing in better delivery, stronger leadership, and long-term operating leverage, this episode is a reminder to audit not just your tools—but your assumptions. Financial strategy and operational strategy are inseparable.