ADA Tax Credit
To assist businesses with complying with the ADA, Section 44 of the IRS Code allows a tax credit for small businesses and Section 190 of the IRS Code allows a tax deduction for all businesses.
- Guide to WCAG Accessibility: How Can I Make Sure I’m in Compliance?
- Wondering How to Make a Website ADA Compliant? Here are 5 Easy Steps
- What Should You Do If You Face an ADA Website Lawsuit?
- Is Your Website Compliant? The Legal Consequences of Inaccessible Websites
- Summary of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA)
- ADA Compliance Law and Penalties
- ADA Compliance Law and Penalties
- Download IRS Form 8826 for the tax credit for small businesses
- Department of Justice ADA Information Line.
Research Results
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Americans with Disability Act
Get a $5,000 ADA Tax Credit for ADA Website Compliance
Did you know that by law you are required to make sure your website is accessible to people with disabilities? In 1990, the American Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed requiring that all public spaces be accessible to people with disabilities. Since then, it has been updated to include websites. It’s important to make sure your website meets ADA standards, both so that it is accessible to a wide audience, and to prevent yourself from vulnerability to an ADA compliance lawsuit.
Fortunately, the IRS provides for tax credits & deductions for businesses to make modifications to meet ADA website compliance. You may be eligible for both an ADA tax credit of up to $5,000 and an ADA tax deduction of up to $15,000 every year for ADA compliance modifications to your website
ADA Compliant Website Lawsuit
It’s important to check your website for ADA compliance on a regular basis, because even with good intentions, you can fall short of compliance and open yourself to an accessibility law suit. Between 2017 and 2019, more than two thirds of the top 500 retailers in the U.S. were sued for failure to meet ADA website compliance. In 2020, there were 10,982 ADA website compliance lawsuits filed in Federal court. Run a regular scan of your website and contact an experienced web developer to correct any ADA compliance issues. These measures are important both for accessibility and to protect yourself legally.
ADA Website Compliance
If you’re unsure whether you’re website is ADA compliant, these are some of the things you’ll need to check for: Correct color contrast for users with color vision deficiency Link text should be descriptive rather than ambiguous such as “click here” Video and multimedia must have captions and other accessibility features Links that open in a new window are tagged appropriately All images should have alternate text attributes Please see our article “How to Make Your WordPress Website ADA Compliant” for a full list of issues. In order to check a WordPress website to determine if it meets compliance, we recommend installing the WP ADA Compliance Check Basic Plugin. This plugin will run a free scan of your website and identify any ADA issues that need to be corrected.
ADA Tax Credit for Websites
Fortunately, your business may qualify for a tax credit of up to $5,000 to make these ADA website modifications. This credit is available for small businesses, defined as a business with fewer than 30 full time employees OR revenue of less than $1 million annually. When the ADA was passed in 1990, the IRS created a Section 44 tax credit to help reduce the cost to small businesses making modifications such as including a wheelchair accessible ramp and signage in braille. At the time, websites were not an important public space or vehicle of commerce. Today, accessibility to websites is crucial for customers to be able to access goods and services. You can now apply Section 44 to your business expenses for website compliance using the form below. See this fact sheet on Section 44 (PDF) for more information.
ADA Compliance Tax Deduction
In addition to the tax credit for website modifications, Section 190 of the tax code also allows businesses a tax deduction of up to $15,000 annually for removal of accessibility barriers. These funds can be used for website maintenance that removes any ADA compliance issues that you find on your website. If you are already performing regular ADA compliance website maintenance, this is an important tax deduction that your company may be eligible for. See below to learn how the ADA tax credit and tax deduction can be combined.
ADA Tax Credit vs. Tax Deduction
What’s the difference between an ADA tax credit and a tax deduction? To summarize, a tax credit is applied after you have calculated your annual taxes and is subtracted from the amount of taxes you owe the IRS. Meanwhile, a tax deduction is deducted from your total income before calculating taxes owed. If you have both made ADA modifications to your website and conducted maintenance to remove accessibility barriers in a calendar year, you are likely eligible for both the ADA tax credit and the ADA tax deduction. Most companies have ADA website compliance expenses on an annual basis, and are eligible for both the credit and deduction every year. If you have already used the $5,000 tax credit, you can claim the rest of your ADA website compliance expenditures as a tax deduction if they also qualify under Section 190.
ADA Tax Credit Form
In order to apply for the ADA tax credit, you will use Form 8826 (PDF). Follow the steps on the form to apply for your tax credit. Here is an example of what ADA tax credit form 8826 looks like:
This tax credit applies for 50% of the cost of ADA website compliance modifications, beginning after the first $250. Therefore, if you have a website accessibility modification expense of $10,250, you will be eligible for the entire $5,000 tax credit. If your website modifications also qualify under tax section 190, you can claim the remainder of your ADA website modification expenses ($5,250) as a tax deduction.
