Date to remember: Register your eligible R&D activities by 31 October

If you are conducting R&D activities, you may be eligible to claim an R&D tax offset.

Keeping R&D records

Remember that you must keep accurate records to substantiate your claims. Not only does this make good business sense, it's also the law. Records must generally be kept for a minimum of 5 years and a penalty may be imposed if proper records are not kept.

Your records must be sufficient to verify the:

• amount of expenditure incurred on R&D activities
• nature of the R&D activities
• relationship of the expenditure to the activities.

You should keep documents to show how you apportioned expenditure between your eligible core R&D activities and supporting R&D activities as opposed to your other non-R&D activities. It is your responsibility to satisfy the ATO that you used reasonable methods to differentiate between your expenditure on R&D activities and your expenditure on non-R&D activities.

Specific R&D records

You will need to retain documents such as reports detailing the R&D activities you carried out, who conducted the R&D activities and the time your staff spent on the R&D activities.

Important dates

Your R&D activities must be registered within 10 months from the end of your income year.

If your income year ended on 31 December 2022, you must submit your R&D Tax Incentive application through the customer portal by 11:59 pm (AEDT), Tuesday 31 October 2023.

If you can't submit your application by the deadline, you need to request an extension of time through the customer portal.

You can prepare for the deadline by checking your portal access to ensure you can lodge your application on time. The ATO’s Customer Portal Help and Support Link on business.gov.au makes the process of registering your R&D activities easy.

How we can help

If you need assistance to help you to prepare and lodge your tax return or R&D tax incentive schedule call us on 02 9608 3707 or contact us here for more information.

Date published 24 Oct 2023 | Last updated 24 Oct 2023

This article is intended to inform rather than advise and is based on legislation and practice at the time. Taxpayer’s circumstances do vary and if you feel that the information provided is beneficial it is important that you contact us before implementation. If you take, or do not take action as a result of reading this article, before receiving our written endorsement, we will accept no responsibility for any financial loss incurred.