26 U.S.C. § 44 — Expenditures to provide access to disabled individuals

(a) An eligible small business can claim a disabled access credit, counted toward the general business credit in section 38. The credit equals 50% of the business's eligible access expenditures for the year, but only counting the part of those expenditures between $250 and $10,250. (b) A business counts as an "eligible small business" if it meets two conditions. First, either its gross receipts for the previous taxable year were $1,000,000 or less, or, if that's not true, it employed no more than 30 full-time employees during the previous taxable year. An employee counts as full-time if they worked at least 30 hours a week for 20 or more weeks that year. Second, the business must choose, or "elect," to use this credit for the taxable year. (c) "Eligible access expenditures" means amounts an eligible small business pays or incurs to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as that law existed when this section was enacted. This includes amounts paid: (A) to remove architectural, communication, physical, or transportation barriers that keep disabled individuals out of the business; (B) to provide qualified interpreters or other effective ways to make audio material available to people with hearing impairments; (C) to provide qualified readers, taped texts, or other effective ways to make visual material available to people with visual impairments; (D) to buy or modify equipment or devices for disabled individuals; or (E) to provide other similar services, modifications, materials, or equipment. These expenditures must be reasonable — costs that aren't actually needed to achieve these purposes don't count. Amounts spent on new construction don't count either — specifically, barrier-removal costs under (A) don't qualify if they're for a facility first placed in service after this section became law. Finally, an expenditure only counts if the taxpayer proves to the Secretary's satisfaction that the barrier removal, service, or equipment meets the standards the Secretary sets, with input from the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. (d) "Disability" has the same meaning here as it does under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Several special rules apply. All corporations in the same controlled group, and all businesses under common control, count as a single business for this credit, and the Secretary will divide the dollar limits among them by regulation. For a partnership, the dollar limit applies both to the partnership and to each partner; the same rule applies to an S corporation and its shareholders. If a business's previous taxable year was shorter than 12 months, the Secretary will prescribe adjustments to the employee-count test. Gross receipts get reduced by any returns and allowances for the year. A reference to a "person" for the gross-receipts test includes that person's predecessor business. Finally, a business can't double-dip: if it takes this credit for an expenditure, it can't also deduct that same amount under another tax provision, and that expenditure can't increase the business's basis in any property. (e) The Secretary will issue whatever regulations are needed to carry out this section.