Recent News

ATO and AusIndustry Joint Podcast on R&D Tax Incentive

March 1st, 2021

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 […]

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Record Penalty Imposed for Promotion of Schemes Involving R&D Tax Incentive

February 17th, 2021

The Federal Court has imposed a record penalty of $22.68M on Mr Paul Enzo Bogiatto and his associated companies for a contravention of promoter penalty involving tax exploitation schemes relating to the R&D Tax Incentive between 2012 and 2015. Mr Bogiatto had previously been deregistered as a tax agent and member of Chartered Accountants Australia in relation to the matters. Various media outlets and Chartered Accountants disciplinary hearings surrounding the matter reported that: Mr Bogiatto would reach out to clients […]

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Australian Investment Council Proposes Relaunch of R&D Tax Incentive in May Budget

February 15th, 2021

The Government’s annual federal budget is traditionally delivered during May each year, however in 2020 it was deferred until October due to COVID. When the 2020 budget was finally handed down, it provided welcome news for the R&D Tax Incentive, since previously proposed budget cuts were replaced with alternate changes providing additional R&D tax benefits from FY22. The Government’s 2021 federal budget (potentially an election year budget) is due to be handed down in May 2021. InnovationAus has recently summarised […]

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H2O Exchange Pty Ltd v Innovation and Science Australia [2021] FCA 11 (22 January 2021)

February 8th, 2021

Introduction In October 2019 a decision was reached by the AAT in the matter of H2O Exchange Pty Ltd and Innovation and Science Australia. The matter related to dispute of a previous decision by Innovation and Science Australia (AusIndustry) finding that Activities registered under the R&D Tax Incentive were not in accordance with the legislative requirements. Background The disputed project registered related to the development of an online platform for the cross-border trading of water entitlements and allocations, that could […]

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