In comments published in The Australian coinciding with the release of their FY19 financial report, Cochlear has called on the Australian government to adapt policies to ensure Australia remains competitive in attracting global investment in R&D Activity. CEO Dig Howitt noted specifically that the R&D Tax Incentive must be subject to a stable policy platform to address Australia’s declining R&D Expenditure when quantified as a proportion of GDP. Dig Howitt had previously mentioned at the AFR Innovation Summit that […]
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 […]
The AFR has reported that Industry Minister Karen Andrews (whose responsibility includes oversight of the R&D Tax Incentive) recently met with representatives of high profile Australian start ups and parties from venture capital firms. Attendees at the meeting included personnel from Airtasker, who had a previously lodged R&D claim found to be ineligible by regulators, which had been previously highly publicised in the media. Ms Andrews was quoted within the article as: being concerned by the dropping level of business […]
This week, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) hosted its annual Innovation Summit involving presentations and discussions by technology sector and industry leaders. The importance of stability in innovation policy (and in particular, the R&D Tax Incentive) was a largely uniform view among those participating in the summit. Key notes from the presentations include the following: A representative from CSL noted that the timeline for commercialising drugs required thinking in 10-15 year cycles, and that frequent changes to innovation policy made […]