The ATO recently released a report titled Tax Avoidance Taskforce highlights 2020-21. The report has highlighted that: Activity over the past year achieved favourable promoter penalty outcomes in two Federal Court applications following investigations by the taskforce’s Promoters and Tax Exploitation Program, one of which involved exploitation of the R&D Tax Incentive; The ATO’s focus in the coming year will continue to be specialist large market advisors who promote and run tax avoidance schemes. The R&D tax matters identified in […]
Under SECT 355.405 ITAA97, an entity cannot claim R&D expenditure in situations where: (a) when an entity incurs R&D expenditure, consideration had been received, or was reasonably expected to be received: as a direct or indirect result of the expenditure being incurred; and regardless of the results of the activities on which the expenditure is incurred; and (b) that consideration is equal to or greater than the expenditure. The spirit of this provision is to ensure companies only receive a […]
Companies seeking to register R&D Activities conducted during the Year Ended 30 June 2020 (ie FY20 – last financial year) who are yet to do so should note that the Registration Deadline is 30 April 2021. Last year, AusIndustry applied a blanket extension to all companies’ FY19 R&D Applications due to COVID. We are of the understanding that this blanket extension will NOT be available for FY20 applications, and the 30 April 2021 statutory deadline (10 months after the end of the financial […]
AusIndustry and the ATO have published a joint podcast on business.gov.au this week, featuring Brett Challans (ATO) and Kelly Wiggins (DISER). The podcast discusses key R&D Tax Incentive issues relevant to each department, including: Eligible entities; The self-assessment process; Categories of ineligible expenditure; Records relevant to substantiating the R&D process through systematic progression of work i.e. from hypothesis to conclusions. E.g. emails, project plans, annual reports, lab notebooks and meeting minutes; Records relevant to substantiating expenditure including invoices, contractors and […]