The North Carolina entry, field by field
This is the registry entry our engine applies for tax year 2026, rendered field by field. Where a field is blank in the registry, the row says so rather than filling the gap.
- Credit for TY2026
- Expired No. The registry records the North Carolina credit as expired: Former N.C. Gen. Stat. §105-129.50 et seq. (Article 3F - sunset for TY beginning on/after 1/1/2016)
- State form
- None recorded in the registry
- Statute
- Former N.C. Gen. Stat. §105-129.50 et seq. (Article 3F - sunset for TY beginning on/after 1/1/2016)
What this means for a North Carolina company
Our engine computes no North Carolina research credit for tax year 2026. The registry entry carries Former N.C. Gen. Stat. §105-129.50 et seq. (Article 3F - sunset for TY beginning on/after 1/1/2016).
That is the whole of what the registry says, and this page will not say more. What does not change is the federal position: the §41 credit is computed from the same substantiated qualified research expenses whichever state the work sits in, and a North Carolina company with qualifying research claims it on Form 6765 like anyone else.
Claiming it alongside the federal credit
The federal §41 credit comes first. It is computed from the qualified research expenses the study substantiates - wages for qualified services, supplies consumed in research, computer and cloud rental, and the allowable share of contract research - and it lands on Form 6765 with the return.
A North Carolina company still claims the federal credit in full. What changes without a state credit is only the second layer, not the first. Where the work was physically performed matters: state credits generally reach the research done in the state, so the same employee can sit inside one state's base and outside another's.
That is why the allocation work is done once, at the expense level, with the state attribution recorded as it is built rather than reverse-engineered at filing time.
One base, two computations
- 1 Qualify the activities under the four-part test and total the year's QREs.
- 2 Compute the federal §41 credit and file it on Form 6765.
- 3 Record why no North Carolina credit is claimed, with the citation, so the file answers the question before anyone asks it.
What the registry tells the preparer
These notes travel with the North Carolina entry inside the platform and are reproduced here verbatim, including the registry's own emphasis. They are written for the person signing the return, which is exactly why they belong on a page about the credit.
- North Carolina's Article 3F research and development credit sunset for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2016, and was not replaced - do not claim a NC R&D credit for current tax years. Only carryforwards of credits earned in pre-sunset years (if any remain within their carryforward period) may still be usable; verify on the prior NC-478 series filings.
Sources
The citations below are carried verbatim on the North Carolina registry entry. They are what the study cites, and what a reviewer can check.
- Statute
- Former N.C. Gen. Stat. §105-129.50 et seq. (Article 3F - sunset for TY beginning on/after 1/1/2016)
Registry entry version 2024.1, exported from services/study-api/app/engines/rules_engine.py (STATE_RULES_2024 + STATE_RULES_REGIME_OVERRIDES via RulesEngine.get_state_rules) on September 10, 2026. The registry is versioned per state and per tax year: the entry above governs TY2026, and a study for an earlier year is computed under that year's entry instead.