SR&ED with Vipul Jain | E101
Funding innovation.
On today's episode, Jason Pereira is going to talk to Vipul Jain, an accounting and tax consultant who helps business owners file for shred credits. Vipul explains what SR&ED, or the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program is and who qualifies, and how one can apply.
Episode Highlights:
01:32: Vipul explains a very generous and popular tax credit program provided by the CIA.
02:22: If you are a Canadian controlled private corporation CPC, which most start-ups are. You can get up to 66% of your salaries with your employees reimbursed, so that's super lucrative, and you have to have those in place within Canada, that is the key.
03:32: Qualifying work is something where you are involved to resolve a scientific or technological uncertainty. That means there has to be a risk of failure if you are doing something which is, you know, totally routine, like quality control, routine testing, market research, sales promotion, none of that qualifies because that isn't covered.
03:57: Ask yourself these two key questions. The work you are doing, does it have some sort of technological or scientific innovation, and the code of your business? And are you experimenting with new ideas and approaches to solve problems?
05:34: One of the key principles that must be involved in your work is the use of scientific process. The way you work should involve formulation of a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis and arriving at a conclusion.
07:00: Imagine one employee is working on three projects. Two of them are routine quality testing market research, but one in Australia, that portion of the expense can still be claimed.
07:33: Most business owners are to start off having no idea where to turn. This is which Fred Consultancy comes in the picture to help.
08:53: Vipul explains the process they follow and what documentation is required.
10:22: The CR that currently is promising a timeline of 90% of schemes will be processed within two months.
11:10: You can get your money in 60 days, and then you can use it for literally whatever you want, like invest in a business, build a jacuzzi if you want.
12:29: If you are smart about it, you think of that money coming in first and you basically float.
13:46: If you are a start-up and if you are going for funding for you. They are basically venture capitalists, so you have to show the work you have done at different stages.
15:41: Vipul explains the audit process of the SR&ED program.
17:16: If you are claiming six month's worth of salaries, show me six month's worth of work.
18:11: We might go a little bit back and forth with the CR, and everything is good. Usually it can pass through, but Vipul has seen teams come down anywhere from 20 to 40%.
19:11: Make sure you are recording meeting minutes or notes or emails to keep capturing them in real time, because by the time all its season comes. Imagine you have to go back 12 months ago and trying to find out what did you did 12 months ago.
19:53: There are three key questions the CIA asks, which is in the right form that you have to define what technological uncertainty you had.
3 Key Points:
SR&ED, or the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program, is a Canadian tax incentive program developed to encourage businesses of all sizes and in all sectors to conduct research and development in Canada.
Vipul shares what makes you eligible and ineligible for applying to the SR&ED program.
If you have a scientific process, that's the biggest chunk of you to prove what technical work you did, and how do you prove it?
Tweetable Quotes:
"Most government programs are typically focused on benefiting those who are actual resins." - Vipul Jain
"Keep in mind when your tax here and you still have 18 months to file the team, and you can file it with your T2 data." - Vipul Jain
"If you think you have a budget of 60,000, could technically hire somebody for 100K, get 60% back and your net cost is 40K." - Vipul Jain
"I know many organizations where basically they have already factored it in as a line item on their revenue." - Vipul Jain
"You can't pay yourself if you own more than 10% of the shares of the company as a contractor." - Vipul Jain
Resources Mentioned: