The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued a warning over businesses claiming the R&D tax incentive for ineligible software development work.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued a warning over businesses claiming the R&D tax incentive for ineligible software development work.
The incentive — which in 2011 replaced the R&D tax concession and which is jointly administered by the ATO and AusIndustry — provides tax offsets in order to encourage R&D activities in Australia.
The ATO has warned that some companies are claiming the incentive for software projects that don’t meet key criteria for the program.
“In order to be eligible, there must be an experiment or experiments being carried out for the purpose of generating new knowledge,” states tax office guidance issued yesterday.
“The outcome of the experiments cannot be able to be known or determined in advance by a competent professional in the field.
