Contract research expenses

In accounting, contract research expenses means 65% of amounts paid to a non-employee for qualified researchResearch creditQualified researchResearch whose costs are §174A domestic research expenditures, undertaken to discover information that is technological in nature, intended to be useful in developing a new or improved business component, where substantially all (80% or more) of the activities form a process of experimentation for a functional purpose — applied to each business component separately, and excluding research after commercial production, adaptation, duplication, surveys, most internal-use software, foreign research, social sciences and funded research performed on the taxpayer's behalf under an agreement made before the work, where the taxpayer bears the cost even if the research fails; 75% for a qualified research consortium.