This 2020 summer presents a great opportunity to hire motivated and talented interns. This year’s class just finished a semester of virtual classroom learning and has remote working skills. Moreover this year’s class is impacted and recognizes that they must contribute and excel to compete in the challenging recovering economy environment.
Many very talented candidates lost previously promised internships and are available to help the 3D printing industry.
Interns can add value in the following areas:
- Blog writing
- White paper research and writing
- Article research and writing
- Social media communications
- Website improvements
- Curating customer lists
- Preparing for fall trade shows
- Identifying new suppliers
- Video creation
- Competitor analysis
- Benchmarking
- Helping during the vacation season
- Accounts receivable collection
Interns with technical skills can code and create software applications including time saving “bots”.
As Al Pacino famously said in Scent of a Woman: He (she) is going to make you proud one day.
This summer’s interns may actually be cost free if your firm has PPP wage payment loan obligations.
To the extent your interns work on technical projects their costs may also qualify for R&D tax credits.
The Research and Development Tax Credit
Enacted in 1981, the now permanent Federal Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit allows a credit that typically ranges from 4%-7% of eligible spending for new and improved products and processes. Qualified research must meet the following four criteria:
- Must be technological in nature
- Must be a component of the taxpayer’s business
- Must represent R&D in the experimental sense and generally includes all such costs related to the development or improvement of a product or process
- Must eliminate uncertainty through a process of experimentation that considers one or more alternatives
Eligible costs include US employee wages, cost of supplies consumed in the R&D process, cost of pre-production testing, US contract research expenses, and certain costs associated with developing a patent.
On December 18, 2015, President Obama signed the PATH Act, making the R&D Tax Credit permanent. Beginning in 2016, the R&D credit can be used to offset Alternative Minimum tax for companies with revenue below $50MM and, startup businesses can obtain up to $250,000 per year in payroll tax cash rebates.
Conclusion
In addition to helping your 3D printing firm a successful internship often results in a better future permanent hire.
