Over the past week, The Australian has featured articles quoting Australia’s two leading medical technology companies, CSL and Cochlear, calling on the Australian government to deliver consistent R&D Tax incentives after four years of policy review and uncertainty. The article comes at a time when Parliament and the Senate are again considering an R&D Tax Reform bill, which was not enacted as law during a previous attempt following concerns raised by the Senate Economics Committee, largely due to complexity of […]
The Australian newspaper has highlighted a speech to the Australian Computer Society on Friday made by Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, who is chairing a committee examining Australia’s fintech sector. The article noted that: The government is mulling a number of policy shifts to make life easier for start-ups; Senator Bragg is quoted as saying: “FinTech Australia tells us the R&D tax incentive is the number one regulatory issue for fintechs. They tell us the importance of the R&D tax incentive […]
In December 2019, Fintech Australia released its response to the Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology Senate inquiry. Their committee voiced concerns regarding the Government’s plan to cut $1.35B from the R&D Tax Incentive and stated that the current definition of “experiments” was impeding innovation by preventing software companies from claiming the tax offset. The submission pointed out that the R&D Tax Incentive is the primary channel used to promote local innovation, with 64% of fintechs having applied for the scheme. […]
The federal government has today reintroduced legislation to reform the R&D Tax Incentive (Treasury Laws Amendment (Research and Development Tax Incentive) Bill 2019) which is detailed here. The previous bill attempting to reform the R&D Tax Incentive did not pass through the Senate, and a Senate Economics Legislation Committee recommended that the bill should be deferred from consideration until further analysis of the bill’s impact is undertaken, particularly with respect to concerns around the proposed intensity threshold and refundable offset […]