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Government Policy and Treasury

Federal Government Flags Potential Further R&D Tax Changes to Help Fintech Industry

February 10th, 2020

The Australian newspaper has highlighted a speech to the Australian Computer Society on Friday made by Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, who is chairing a committee examining Australia’s fintech sector.   The article noted that: The government is mulling a number of policy shifts to make life easier for start-ups; Senator Bragg is quoted as saying: “FinTech Australia tells us the R&D tax incentive is the number one regulatory issue for fintechs. They tell us the importance of the R&D tax incentive […]

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Fintech Australia Uses Fintech And Regtech Senate Inquiry To Highlight Importance Of The R&D Tax Incentive

January 14th, 2020

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. […]

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Reintroduction of legislation to reform R&D Tax Incentive

December 5th, 2019

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 […]

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Opposition make first comments on Innovation Policy Since Election

November 18th, 2019

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 […]

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