Patent Grant Program featured in The Australian Financial Review

October 15th, 2014

The Australian Financial Review recently featured Swanson Reed and the proposed Patent Grant Program in Tuesday’s release. The article Innovation crisis a matter of urgency, tax advisers say addresses the innovation crisis looming if the Australian Government does not act soon on policy to encourage investment in innovation.

Swanson Reed collaborated with Wrays, intellectual property and patent advisers, to propose a patent grant system as an interim measure until the deadlock on introducing the UK-style-patent-box incentives breaks.

Treasurer Joe Hockey echoed concerns by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting that patent box incentives – tax breaks on profits made from patents registered in the home country – would result in tax erosion in countries without the incentives.

Swanson Reed tax principal Damian Smyth said Australia needed to be seen to be doing something to stop IP leaving Australia to Silicon Valley and Singapore, where substantial incentives are available.

“Our premise is that we have to be seen to be implementing something to maintain our competitiveness,” he said.

Mr Smyth said the scheme would be cheaper than a patent box-based incentive, easier to implement and, being a ministerial grant, would not require passage through Parliament or Senate. If the scheme were successful at a modest cost – $50 million to fund 1000 patents – it could “lay the seed for successful bipartisan support for a broader patent box style incentive in the medium term”.

It would also add around 0.5 per cent or $7.2 billion to the GDP.

“We support a patent box initiative over the medium to long term, but given the impasse of the Senate and with the budgetary concerns, a full-blown patent box for larger corporations may not be feasible at this time,” Mr Smyth said.

Click here to read the full report.

Patent Grant Program - A bright new idea for innovation policy

Patent Grant Program – A bright new idea for innovation policy

Categories

Archives

Swanson Reed - Specialist R&D Tax Advisors
Swanson Reed - Specialist R&D Tax Advisors
39 Google reviews
Daniel McGregor
Daniel McGregor
2022-08-11
I have been using Swanson Reed for my clients for more than a decade. Having a specialist firm that can provide practical and commercial advice that produces real outcomes is very important and we have received great feedback from our clients. Highly recommended.
John
John
2022-06-15
Damian and the rest of the team at Swanson Reed have been supporting us for several years. We always appreciate their insights, expertise, and efforts.
Rueben Rajasingam
Rueben Rajasingam
2022-06-06
Experienced responsive Team. They have been a great help to me and my company navigate the R&D tax claim process and have provided invaluable advice.
Enrique Esquivel
Enrique Esquivel
2022-06-06
Damian and the team at Swanson Reed have been extremely helpfully and professional during all of our consultations. Highly recommended.
Jess at Y&C
Jess at Y&C
2022-06-03
Anatole Kononewsky
Anatole Kononewsky
2022-06-02
The Swanson Reed team have provided our company with exceptional professional advice and assistance for all of our R&D claims for many years - have always achieved great results with excellent value for their services.
Payam Toloo
Payam Toloo
2022-06-02
Damian Smyth and his team are very helpful, supportive and experts in their field of R&D Tax claims. I'm always happy with the work they do and been a customer of their for over 5 years.
Melissa Doddy
Melissa Doddy
2022-05-31
The Team at Swanson Reed are very experienced R&D Tax Advisors and gave us ongoing support with all of our R&D Claims, the consultants ensured we were always working with current legislative guidelines, gave us assistance with compiling technical and government documentation and went out their way to ensure they were with us for the entire process from beginning to end. Highly recommended to anyone who needs assistance with working through what can at times be a daunting process.
Gary Watson
Gary Watson
2022-05-31
We can highly recommend Swanson and Reed as an R & D accountant. We have worked with them for several years now as they make our R & D claim so easy and communicate quickly with both us and our accountant.
Rob van den Bergh
Rob van den Bergh
2022-05-31
Always professional.