Why Bigger Isn’t Better for Your R&D Tax Credit

The accounting profession is consolidating fast, and it’s changing who actually handles your R&D tax credit.

Grant Thornton recently announced its acquisition of CBIZ, a deal worth roughly $5 billion and backed by New Mountain Capital. The combined firm will become the fifth-largest accounting and advisory organization in the United States. It’s the latest sign of a broader shift: firms chasing scale, expanding advisory services, investing in technology, and consolidating operations for efficiency.

For businesses that rely on the R&D tax credit, this raises a real question: as accounting firms grow through consolidation, who is actually focused on your R&D tax credit?

Bigger Firms, Bigger Priorities

Large accounting firms have always offered broad service lines. Now they’re also under pressure to integrate acquisitions, protect profitability, invest in AI, and hit return-on-investment targets.

AI is becoming central to tax operations, and for good reason. Automated tools organize documentation, analyze large datasets, flag inconsistencies, and speed up routine work.

But the R&D tax credit is different. Its success depends on understanding how innovation actually happens inside a business. Technology can’t sit down with engineers, evaluate whether research activities qualify, or exercise the professional judgment needed to defend a position in an IRS exam. That still takes a person.

The Risk of Scale in R&D Tax Credit Services

Consolidation creates efficiencies. It also creates distance.

As firms grow, everything tends to standardize: processes, client interactions, even decisions, which increasingly follow enterprise-wide platforms and utilization metrics rather than case-by-case judgment.

For companies claiming the R&D tax credit, that’s worth paying attention to. How well you identify, document, and substantiate your qualified activities determines the quality of your R&D study. A one-size-fits-all process rarely catches every qualified business component or builds the strongest, audit-ready documentation.

Why MASSIE Chose a Different Path

MASSIE was built on a different premise.

Rather than becoming another multidisciplinary accounting firm, we chose to stay focused on one thing: the R&D tax credit.

Our team consists exclusively of R&D tax credit specialists. Many built their careers at some of the nation’s largest accounting firms before choosing to focus solely on research credit work. That gives them a firsthand view of both the strengths and the limitations of large-scale service models.

That experience matters.

Specialization means our full attention goes toward one goal: helping clients maximize, document, and defend their research credits.

Technology Is an Enhancer, Not a Substitute

We use AI and automation too, to streamline collaboration, cut administrative work, improve documentation, and make the R&D tax credit process smoother for tax departments and technical teams.

But technology is only one piece of the process.

The strongest R&D tax credit studies are still built through collaboration between experienced tax professionals and the engineers, scientists, developers, and technical staff performing the qualified research. The value comes from interpreting that work with technical understanding and professional judgment, not simply collecting data. That’s difficult to replicate through scale alone.

As the accounting industry keeps consolidating and private equity reshapes the nation’s largest firms, it’s worth asking a simple question: do you want an R&D tax credit practice that’s one of many service lines, or a team whose entire focus is maximizing, substantiating, and defending your R&D tax credit?

At MASSIE, we believe focused expertise is the most valuable differentiator in an increasingly consolidated market. That’s why we’ve stayed dedicated specialists, and why our clients trust a partner whose entire business is built around the R&D tax credit. If you want to talk about your R&D tax credit process, reach out; we’d love to talk.

Peter Green

As MASSIE’s CEO, Peter is responsible for the company’s growth and client experience initiatives that make the R&D tax credit process easier, generating larger credits and ensuring smoother audits. His innovative strategies at MASSIE, ...