American Disability Act For Websites
There are many compelling reasons why you should make your website ADA compliant.
The main reason being there are alot of people with disabilities who need to access the internet as easily as everybody else.
Also, lawsuits are on the rise over websites not being compliant with the ADA laws. There’s two excellent reasons to begin, and now its easy to get the process going.
In addition, the government gives a tax credit for costs related to making your website ADA compliant, so it makes the decision to incorporate ADA compliance that much easier.
Please be advised this article is purely information and is not to be taken as tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor about your tax situation.
Reasons Why Businesses Don’t Make Their Website ADA Compliant
Most business owners, and executive directors of non-profits, dont know about ADA compliance requirements for their websites. The few that do, often have reasons why they dont want to make their site compliant . Many dont know thousands of lawsuits are started each year and there are over 100,000 threats of ADA lawsuits that result in out of court settlements worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We have found most business owners continue to ignore this because…
- They don’t believe ADA Compliance is required for their website. The Department of Justice confirmed that websites must be ADA compliant back in 2018 so there understanding is misguided.
- They think they won’t get sued. Yes, there are millions of sites that are not ADA compliant, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. They have the mentality that someone else will get sued, instead of them, but why roll the dice?
Organizations spend thousands if not millions to make their buildings ADA compliant, but they seem okay gambling they won’t get called out on their website. - They think its expensive. This seems to be the most common reason why, and combined with the other reasons, they leave their sites unprotected.
Transforming your website, into an ADA compliant one is a very detailed-oriented and highly technical project that can run into the thousands even for a bare-bones website. With some implementations, it can end up costing more then the website itself! In some rare instances, the whole site needs to be rebuilt because its doesn’t make sense to code it, in its current state.
However the Federal Government is “paying” for websites to be ADA compliant with an inticing tax credit.
About the government tax credit for adding ADA compliancy to your Website
The Americans with Disabilities Act made provisions for businesses and organization’s in the Tax Code. “Section 44 of the IRS Code allows a tax credit for small businesses and Section 190 of the IRS Code allows a tax deduction for all businesses.” according the ADA website.
If your Business makes $1,000,000 total revenue or less in the prior tax year, or has 30 or fewer full-time employees you may qualify for a Tax Credit for Website ADA Compliance Costs that can cover up to 50% of up to $10,000 in qualified expenses. In other words, if the cost of remediating your website is over $10,000 (see details below), you may be eligible to receive a tax credit for your business of up to $5,000.
To apply for the tax credit for website ADA compliance, consult your Tax Professional. They can show you IRS Form 8826, the “Disabled Access Credit” form, which you attach to your tax return.
Its easy to complete and requires you put in eight numbers, and the IRS has already filled in two of them for you. You simpley enter your total costs to comply with the ADA and according to Form 8826 instructions, “For purposes of the credit, these expenditures are amounts paid or incurred by the eligible small business to comply with applicable requirements under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-336) as in effect on November 5, 1990.”
The first $250 of your expenses are not included in the calculation, and the maximum allowable expenses you can claim are $10,000. Those are two of the numbers the IRS has placed on the form already. So whatever you spend beyond $250, up to $10,000, gets divided by 50%, and that would be your tax credit for website ADA compliance, up to a maximum of $5,000. (Please talk with your tax preparer for further details.)
Tax Deduction for Website ADA Compliance Costs
Not only might you be eligible for a Tax Credit, but your business might also be eligible for a Tax Deduction for website ADA compliance, too. According to the IRS, the ADA tax deduction is available to all businesses with a maximum deduction of $15,000 per year. So even if you don’t qualify for the tax credit, you may still qualify for the tax deduction.
And according to this ADA Tax Incentive Publication, the Tax Deduction and Tax Credit can be used together if your total eligible ADA compliance expenses exceed $10,250. For example, if you spent more than $10,250 on your website ADA compliance expenses (which gives you a $5,000 tax credit), then any eligible expenses over that $10,250 would be eligible for the tax deduction for website ADA compliance. (Please consult your tax professional for your specific situation.)
No More Reasons?
It just so happens that many of our ADA compliance services are well below the $10,250 amount, which means that about half of your website ADA Compliance costs would be paid for by the Federal Government through the tax credit or Tax Deduction for website ADA compliance. So now there are no reasons left to not make your website ADA compliant.
Click HERE to learn more about our ADA compliance solutions that will protect you from lawsuits that start at $350 per year!