Selling Products You Did Not Make: The Nonmanufacturer Rule and the Traps Inside It
You can win a small business supply set-aside without making the product, but only if you meet the nonmanufacturer rule. Miss a requirement and your…
4 min read
Government Contracting News & Insights
Contracting intelligence for small and minority-owned businesses, from the TIKC advisory team.
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Page 13 of 24 · Newest first
The Set-Aside Promise You Have to Keep: Limitations on Subcontracting
When you win a set-aside, you promise to perform a minimum share of the work yourself. Violate the limitations on subcontracting and you risk the…
4 min read
The CMMC Suspension Is Now a Regulation. Here Is What Changed.
On September 3, DoD converted the CMMC Phase 2 suspension from a policy memo into a binding DFARS class deviation, while DOJ settlements make inaccurate…
4 min read
The Money You Cannot Spend to Win: Anti-Lobbying Rules and the Byrd Amendment
Federal law bars using appropriated funds to lobby for a contract or grant, and requires you to disclose other lobbying. What the Byrd Amendment means…
4 min read
The Conflict That Can Lock You Out of Your Own Market: Impaired-Objectivity OCI for Advisory Firms
If your firm advises the government, an impaired-objectivity conflict can bar you from related work. Why advisory and services firms face the hardest OCI to…
4 min read
Where Your Products Are Really Made: The Trade Agreements Act and Country-of-Origin Fraud
The Trade Agreements Act limits where products sold to the government can be made, and a false country-of-origin certification is a growing source of False…
4 min read
The End of the Price Reductions Clause: What GSA’s Move to Transactional Data Reporting Means
GSA is retiring the Price Reductions Clause and Commercial Sales Practices in favor of mandatory Transactional Data Reporting and Pricing 2.0. What Schedule holders must…
4 min read
The Timecard Is a Legal Document: Labor Mischarging and Why It Ends Careers
Charging labor to the wrong contract, or booking hours not worked, is one of the most prosecuted forms of government contract fraud. How mischarging happens…
4 min read
The Six Systems the Government Grades: Business System Adequacy and Payment Withholds
DoD reviews contractor business systems, and a ‘significant deficiency’ can trigger payment withholds. What the six systems are and why adequacy protects your cash flow.
4 min read
The Audit That Comes Years Later: DCAA, Incurred Costs, and the Unallowable-Cost Trap
On cost-reimbursement and T&M work, DCAA can review your billed costs years after the fact. Charge an unallowable cost and the government wants it back…
4 min read
The 8(a) Shake-Up Everyone’s Arguing About: SBA Ends the Social-Disadvantage Presumption
SBA’s final rule removing the 8(a) rebuttable presumption of social disadvantage is now in effect — a contested change some call a constitutional fix and…
5 min read
SBA Moves to Reclassify 114,000+ Firms as ‘Small’ — Reshaping the Set-Aside Market
A sweeping SBA proposal would make roughly 114,541 more firms — including 37,000 existing contractors — qualify as small, transforming who competes for set-asides.
3 min read
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The Briefing
The Briefing is the TIKC weekly federal contracting newsletter covering policy changes, opportunities and practical next steps for small businesses.
- Policy changes worth knowing about
- Opportunities for small and minority-owned firms
- Practical next steps you can act on
