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What is the R&D Tax Incentive?

You might’ve heard of it before: it’s the cashback scheme for businesses putting time and money into research and development. Just a bit of financial support for innovating.

Why Should You Care About the Rebate Timeline? 

Well, it helps you plan your budget, decide on future R&D work, and just makes financial planning a bit smoother.Knowing when you can expect the rebate affects your budgeting, your financial planning, and decisions on your ongoing R&D projects.

Why Start-ups Specifically Value the R&D Rebate?

For start-ups, cash flow is king. In the early stages of a business, while you’re innovating and trying to disrupt markets, every dollar counts. The R&D rebate can provide a crucial cash injection just when you need it most. It’s not just about getting some funds back; it’s about fuelling further innovation, supporting growth, and potentially extending your runway. Leveraging the R&D tax incentive can be a game-changer for start-ups, turning innovation efforts into a financial advantage

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What is the process to getting the R&D rebate?

The R&D rebate process has several stages, and from start to finish, it takes approximately 8 weeks to see cash in the bank.

Here’s an overview of each step and its duration:

1. R&D Eligibility Assessment – (0 weeks)
2. R&D Rebate Estimate – (0 weeks)
3. Technical Interviews – (1 week)
4. R&D Plan Write-Up – (1 week)
5. Financial Review – (1 week)
6. AusIndustry Lodgment – (0 weeks)
7. AusIndustry Registration – (1 week)
8. Accountant Lodgment – (0 weeks)
9. ATO ITR Processing – (4 weeks)

About 8 weeks in total for 95% of applicants.

Core Segments

When approaching the R&D rebate process, it’s useful to consider it in three core segments:

1. R&D Consultant Work – This encompasses tasks like the eligibility assessment, conducting technical interviews, drafting the R&D plan, reviewing financials, and handling the lodgment. (3 weeks)
2. AusIndustry Registration – After our groundwork, we then proceed to the official registration with AusIndustry. (1 week)
3. ATO Processing – Once we’ve lodged everything and secured the registration, the ATO takes the reins. (4 weeks)

We set everything in motion, AusIndustry provides the necessary registration, and then the ATO processes and finalises your rebate. The entire journey is streamlined to approximately 8 weeks, ensuring you get your rebate in a timely fashion.

Step 1 – R&D Eligibility Assessment (0 weeks)

We begin by verifying your company’s status to ensure it isn’t classified as an ineligible entity by the ATO.

Central to the rebate claim is determining whether the activities undertaken classify as eligible. Key questions we assess include:

1. Has a core R&D activity occurred?
2. Was there a systematic progression of work that advanced from a base state of knowledge?
3. Did the work start with a hypothesis or a clear objective?

Recognising that not everyone operates within a scientific frame of reference, we take care to phrase our questions in varied ways. This ensures we capture the essence of the work undertaken, regardless of the terminologies you might be familiar with.

A successful R&D rebate application hinges on proving the presence of an eligible core activity. Our assessment ensures we identify and highlight these activities right from the start, setting a solid foundation for the rest of the process.

This can normally be done in a 15 minute chat – book a time here

Step 2 – R&D Eligibility Assessment (0 weeks)

To determine the potential value of the R&D Tax Incentive for you, here’s what we’ll need to review:

1. R&D Costs: At this stage, rough estimates of your yearly R&D expenses will suffice. These provide a snapshot of your investment in innovation.
2. Loss Position: I’ll look at whether you’ve faced a loss this year or have any carry-forward losses. This information impacts the rebate calculation.

With this data in hand, I can quickly provide an initial rebate estimate. This gives you a clear indication of potential benefits before we dive deeper into the R&D process.

This can be combined with the step above – book a time here

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Step 3 – Technical Interviews (1 week)

During this phase, our primary objective is to get to the heart of the R&D activities undertaken by your company. This means we’re aiming to talk to the technical experts—the ones in the trenches, working directly on the innovations. Here’s what you can expect:

1. Focus on Technical Staff: We zero in on the technical team members, whether in-house or external contractors. These are the individuals who can provide firsthand insights into the experimental processes and outcomes.
2. Why Not Executives or Marketing Teams? While CEOs, product owners, and marketing professionals play vital roles, they often approach discussions from a product or market perspective. For the R&D Tax Incentive, it’s the nitty-gritty details, the challenges faced, and the technical hurdles overcome that matter. It’s not about how unique the final product is but rather the journey to achieve it.
3. In-depth Discussions: Typically, we’ll conduct one to two interviews with key R&D personnel. It’s crucial for us to delve into specifics and attain quantifiable results. An essential aspect we’re keen on understanding is the challenges faced during development—often, what went wrong reveals more about the R&D process than what went right.

Remember, the objective is to understand the genuine technical challenges and innovations. The R&D Tax Incentive is centred around recognising the effort, experimentation, and advancement in technology, not just the uniqueness of the end product.

Step 4 – R&D Plan Write-Up – (1 week)

After our technical discussions, it’s time for us to take the reins and get to work on your behalf.

Here’s a breakdown of what this phase involves:

1. Documenting Insights: We meticulously transcribe our meeting notes, capturing the essence of your R&D journey.
2. Background Research: It’s essential to establish that your innovations are novel. We’ll scour the internet, delve into patent databases, and conduct desktop research to ensure your efforts haven’t been replicated elsewhere.
3. Crafting the R&D Narrative: We don’t hand you a blank template to fill out. Instead, our team synthesises our discussions into a comprehensive report detailing the core and supporting R&D activities. We frame these in the context of scientific experiments, adhering to government guidelines.
4. Bridging the Communication Gap: We understand that you’re focused on product development, while the government expects a detailed scientific account of your R&D endeavours. We play the crucial role of translating your innovative efforts into the scientific language the government expects. Essentially, we’re the interpreters between your team’s technical expertise and the government’s legislative criteria.
5. Seeking Clarifications: We strive for precision and clarity. Should we need more details or require clarity on any aspect of the R&D, we’ll promptly get in touch. Whether it’s to understand more about experimental failures, quantify results, or dive deeper into certain technicalities, we ensure our report is both comprehensive and compliant.

Our goal in this phase is to represent your R&D journey accurately and compellingly, aligning it perfectly with the government’s criteria for the R&D Tax Incentive. You focus on innovation, and we handle the detailed documentation.

Step 5 – Financial Review – (1 week)

Having established your R&D activities, the next pivotal step is diving deep into the financial aspects of your claim. Here’s a concise breakdown of this stage:

1. Staff Salary Review: The lion’s share of R&D costs usually revolves around staff salaries. We’ll sift through your payroll summary, pinning down the exact proportion of staff time dedicated to R&D activities.
2. Substantiation of Claims: Timesheets serve as primary evidence for staff allocation. We’ll review these and supplement them with other evidentiary items such as project reports, meeting notes, or any documentation that fortifies the accuracy of your timesheets. If your timesheets leave room for improvement, we deploy strategies to logically deduce the time allocations.
3. Overhead Allocation: Every overhead cost linked to R&D, like rent, utilities, or internet charges, has a stake in the claim. By scrutinising your profit and loss statement, we apply suitable apportionment methods to allocate these indirect costs to your R&D activities.
4. Collaboration with Your Accountant: We keep the communication lines open with your accountant. This ensures they’re in the loop about the data we’re compiling, and it aligns with the figures they’ll integrate into your tax return.
5. Contractor Costs: We review all contractor engagements, focusing on the nature and location of their work. It’s imperative to verify that these contractors operated within Australia, as offshore expenses don’t qualify. We’ll examine their contracts, invoices, and other related documents.
6. Additional Financial Nuances: Our scrutiny extends to any associate transactions to ensure payments adhered to a cash basis and not accrual. We also assess any feedstock or clawback provisions to ascertain compliance.
7. Key Discussions: Our conversations during this phase are typically with your CFO or Financial Controller, ensuring we’re accessing and interpreting the most accurate and comprehensive financial data.

Our commitment is not just to establish your R&D activities but also to ensure every dollar linked to these activities is accounted for and backed with compelling evidence.

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Step 6 – AusIndustry Lodgment – (0 weeks)

Moving from the assessment and analysis phases, we reach the stage of lodgment. Here’s a breakdown of this process:

1. Integration of Information: Our first step involves amalgamating the technical insights from the R&D plan with your R&D expenditure data, ensuring a comprehensive picture of your R&D activities for the year.
2. Access to the Online Portal: To lodge your claim, we need access to the AusIndustry online portal. This is achieved through the Relationship Authorisation Manager. We kick-start this process in the initial week since gaining online authorisation from the government can be quite a hurdle.
3. Identifying the Principal Authority: A significant part of the authorisation process involves identifying and engaging the principal authority within your organisation. Often, businesses haven’t set this up, which can add a layer of complexity. You might need to spend a bit of effort in this area to ensure the principal authority is authenticated and ready for the process.
4. Lodgment: Once the authorisation hurdles are cleared, the lodgment process is straightforward. We submit your R&D Tax Incentive application through the portal, ensuring all details align with the stringent guidelines.
5. Post-lodgment Documentation: After the successful lodgment of your R&D application, we provide you and your accountant with a complete copy of the submission. This serves as a record of the claim and aids in any subsequent financial reconciliation or reviews.

Our goal during this phase is to ensure a smooth lodgment process, eliminating potential pitfalls and setting the stage for a successful R&D tax incentive outcome.

Step 7 – AusIndustry Registration – (1 week)

Once your R&D application is lodged, it enters AusIndustry’s review process. This is where they evaluate its compliance and identify any potential concerns. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Initial Screening: AusIndustry performs a routine check, scanning for ineligible activities, unusual costs, or other red flags. They are particularly attentive to sectors that have historically shown high non-compliance or industries where specific guidelines exist, like agrifood, biotech, built environment, energy, manufacturing, and software.
2. First-Level Review: Also known as a pre-registration review, this is where AusIndustry aims to filter out high-risk applications. It’s their preliminary evaluation to ensure that only eligible claims proceed. AusIndustry often  assesses your company’s history with the R&D Tax Incentive. They also scrutinise the R&D activities mentioned in your application.
3. Consequences of Ineligibility: It’s important to note, as per AusIndustry’s guidelines, that if they find your activities to be ineligible during their reviews, they might to refuse your registration. But this is rare when using a consultant

The typical turnaround for AusIndustry’s registration process is one week. However, it’s worth noting that during peak times, such as the start of July or the final week of April, this can extend to two weeks. Once registration is complete, both you and the R&D consultant will be notified and provided with an innovation number.

Step 8 – Accountant Lodgment – (0 weeks)

Ensure your R&D claim is compliant and

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