Absolutely agree about the effectiveness of this program. It was important to Sensory Networks during some lean years.
I would strongly recommend that anyone seeking this out give some serious thought to (a) whether they really qualify for it and (b) how they plan to demonstrate this. It is possible to be challenged on both the accounting/tax side *and *the R&D side; we experienced the latter. Fortunately, we had extensive records of performance evaluation and systematic experimentation as a result of our internal systems so it was pretty easy to just clag that across as evidence that we were trying to build high-risk things that haven't been built before. If you can't honestly say that the work you're doing has an element of technical risk you may be asking for trouble if you take this incentive. If you're building (say) a computer vision system that might well completely fail to work, you'd really be well advised to put in the time, just as long as you've got a process for measurement and documentation of your efforts. If you're building something like a "web frontend to a database" you might have a bit of an ask establishing that you had technical risk and were running experiments to see whether the approaches you were taking were feasible. Another thing we liked about the program was it helped keep us on the straight and narrow and away from doing custom work for individual customers. There is an expectation that you are following a doctrine of "multiple sales". This was my strong preference anyhow, but it was always helpful in arguments when someone wanted custom exclusive features to say "well, we're accepting tax incentives that make it much harder for us to stray from multiple sales". I don't think you have to worry about toilet breaks and lunch. But 100% is going to be a red flag as most people will have some activities that can't be remotely described as R&D or supporting to R&D, especially in a small startup. Finally, it *is* possible to DIY this, at least on the tech side. The accounting seemed complex (to me) but filling in the AusIndustry forms didn't seem like it had to have some dude in a suit come in and tell you how to do it. This may be naivete on my part. No offense to the dudes in suits on this thread. If anyone has any questions about my experience and wants to take this off-line, feel free to email me or contact me on LinkedIn. I don't have an agenda or something to sell. However, I do think that genuine R&D in Australian startups is something that should be encouraged. Geoff. On Tuesday, 11 November 2014 14:18:38 UTC+11, Luke Metcalfe wrote: > > This is the most widely applicable advice I give startups: > > Anyone who’s doing an technologically innovative startup should be getting > the R&D Tax Incentive. Even if it’s the founders doing the development, > they should pay themselves a salary. Yes, you pay tax on it but you end up > about $20k-$30k ahead each year. So effectively the government pays > founders a living wage for as long as they’re innovative. No profit, > funding needed. > > These are the guys I use for it: > https://tcfservices.leadpages.net/7-most-common-mistakes-lm01/ > > Cheers > > Luke Metcalfe > http://www.rapint.com > > > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more Forum rules 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Silicon Beach Australia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
