In December 2019, Fintech Australia released its response to the Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology Senate inquiry. Their committee voiced concerns regarding the Government’s plan to cut $1.35B from the R&D Tax Incentive and stated that the current definition of “experiments” was impeding innovation by preventing software companies from claiming the tax offset. The submission pointed out that the R&D Tax Incentive is the primary channel used to promote local innovation, with 64% of fintechs having applied for the scheme. […]
The federal government has today reintroduced legislation to reform the R&D Tax Incentive (Treasury Laws Amendment (Research and Development Tax Incentive) Bill 2019) which is detailed here. The previous bill attempting to reform the R&D Tax Incentive did not pass through the Senate, and a Senate Economics Legislation Committee recommended that the bill should be deferred from consideration until further analysis of the bill’s impact is undertaken, particularly with respect to concerns around the proposed intensity threshold and refundable offset […]
At a recent speech, shadow minister for Innovation and Technology Clare O’Neil has made some high-level comments with respect to the R&D Tax Incentive and Australia’s innovation policy. Key points from the speech included the following: Australia’s national spending on R&D is about 1.8% of GDP. World-leading countries are spending more than 4%, and the OECD average today is well above Australia’s at about 2.4%; 2016-17 was the first year R&D spending in Australia actually went backwards; Labor noted […]
Within comments posted by the AFR, Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox has called on the government to abandon proposed reforms to the R&D Tax Incentive, as well as provide increased investment in direct R&D Programmes. Innes Willox made specific reference to the ‘Intensity Threshold’ test within proposed R&D Reforms as a harmful measure. If introduced, the ‘Intensity Threshold’ would act to reduce the relative R&D Tax saving for companies spending a lower proportion of their total business expenditure on […]