A simple visualisation of the whole RDTI is a conversation between your company and government.
Your company provides information to the government, often through a consultant or tax agent and the government provides tax offsets to your company in return.
But there’s a problem with this conversation model; It’s too simplified.
In effect there are actually two conversations that need to be had to create a successful claim for the RDTI. This is because the RDTI is jointly administered by two government departments; the Australian Tax Office (ATO) and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER) – and specifically with its AusIndustry team.
Part of the RDTI conversation needs to be between your CFO and finance department with the ATO. But another part of the conversation, or perhaps a second, separate conversation, needs to occur between your company’s R&D team (which could actually be your product development, quality control, process control, packaging, logistics or in fact any of the operational parts of your business) and Ausindustry.
The conversation with the ATO is about expenditure and the expenditure rules the ATO applies. It’s a tax conversation.
The second conversation with AusIndustry about your R&D activities, and the eligibility rules that it, not the ATO, applies. It’s not a tax conversation, it’s an R&D conversation.
It is Ausindustry that will assess the eligibility of your R&D activities. The ATO then considers only whether the expenditure that has been claimed is eligible.
You have to get the AusIndustry conversation about the eligibility of activities right. If you don’t, your whole application to the RDTI will be risky.
Further, because registration to the RDTI is self-assessed, a successful RDTI application does not mean that your R&D activities are eligible. Most likely your registration did not involve a detailed assessment by Ausindustry. But the R&D plan in your RDTI registration is subject to review and audit by Ausindustry for a number of years and, if in that review your R&D activities are found to be ineligible, the ATO will request a repayment of any offsets they have paid you. This is a substantial risk to your company.
It’s this Ausindustry conversation where R&D Certainty comes in. We ensure that you’re ready for this conversation and that it is conducted correctly. We work with you to clearly articulate your R&D plan so that your R&D is conducted in the terms that DIIS requires.
We take the risk out of R&D planning for the RDTI.
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