How to Maximize SR&ED Tax Refund
Feb 11, 2025
4 min read
Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Refund program provides incentive funds from over $3.6 billions to thousands of Canadian companies every year to encourage innovative and technological development in country. These incentives are either in the form of Tax Refund or/and Investment Tax Credits(ITC). Although small business reap 75% of SR&ED program fundings, but it requires in-depth knowledge of program to Maximize Tax Refund.
The SR&ED incentive program criteria changes constantly, which needs constant attention to uncover the new terms and conditions of the program. Now, you have two options; either become an expert in SR&ED or hire an external service provider. In the first case, you or someone in your company must have in-depth knowledge of SR&ED’s constantly changing criteria. You must have enough knowledge of Canadian Revenue Agency’s (CRA) criteria to successfully file your claim and be approved. Doing the whole work by yourself could save some dollars for you, but if you have limited staff and you do not want to divert their attention and energies in any other way, you will have to hire a professional SR&ED Consultant.
Hiring a professional and field expert consultant for your claim itself is a challenge. Consultants claim extensive experience with the CRA; accounting and tax expertise; in-depth engineering skills and provision of high quality service; but you will need highest level of subject matter expertise in all those areas to maximize SR&ED Tax Refund.
Tips to Maximize Your SR&ED Tax Refund
Either you handle SR&ED claim by yourself or hire an expert consultant, you will need these points to keep in mind to increase Tax Refund:
Maximize your program knowledge with formalizing yourself with guides, policies, interpretation bulletins to enhance your understanding of program. That program knowledge will help make project that complies to the SR&ED program.A thorough time tracking of your labor or all those involved in the project(s).
Document all related expenses.
Enhance your efforts and proactive to overcome the uncertainty from program results. Your progress report should cite sound efforts dealing with uncertainty.
Document all supporting evidences and logs.
If you have any further questions about eligibility and your specific situation, feel free to contact Kelid for helpful advice. If you have a question that you feel can help other people in similar situations, leave a comment below.
