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SR&ED For Software Development

What are SR&ED Tax Credits?

Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) is a Canadian government tax credit program aimed at encouraging businesses of all sizes to conduct R&D to develop new — or improve existing — methods, processes, services and products

SR&ED Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) provide tax relief to eligible Canadian businesses to offset the cost of innovation.

 

What Can You Recover?

Up to 69% of eligible R&D expenses (depending on your province) may be refunded from CRA. Eligible expenditures include salaries, sub-contractor fees and materials.

A lot of people think that SR&ED is carried out in laboratories by people in white coats but that is not the case. In 2020, Canada’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector spent $8B in business R&D spending, accounting for 42% of all R&D spending in the Economy.

 

Innovation Knows No Bounds

Businesses across many different fields of Software Development qualify for the SR&ED program, including the ones below. However, the nature of the R&D work you do is more relevant than your business sector when determining eligibility for the program.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Business and Finance
  • Analytics
    • Data mining
    • Decision support systems
  • Banking
  • Commerce
    • Cryptocurrency
    • Trading
    • Payment processing
  • Compilers, Parsers
  • Communications and Networks
    • Protocols
  • Cyber-security
    • Hacking
    • Counter-measures
  • Database
  • Embedded systems
    • Automotive software
    • Avionics software
    • Control Systems
    • Medical device software
    • Telephony
    • Telemetry
  • Computer Aided Design (CAD)
  • Games
  • Information systems
  • Logistics
  • Manufacturing
    • Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)
    • Distributed Control Systems (DCS)
  • Office applications
    • Word processors
    • Spreadsheets
  • Operating systems
  • Robotics
  • Signal processing
  • Simulation
  • Testing
  • Vision recognition
  • World wide web
    • Client-side
    • Server-side
  • + Other applications

 

Are You SR&ED Eligible?

  1. Did you attempt to overcome scientific or technological uncertainties?
  2. Did you go through an iterative procedure to try to solve those problems or uncertainties?
  3. Did you achieve a technological advancement or increase technical knowledge?

You’re more eligible than you think!

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  • Have you created a new product, made improvements or added new features to an existing product, or built a prototype?
  • Have you designed or developed new software, or participated in software rewrites? The iterative nature of continuously making improvements or rewrites to your code to solve a previously unresolved technical uncertainty is considered experimentation. And that’s a key criterion for SR&ED.
  • Have you created prototypes of projects or processes that remain incomplete because of unresolved technical problems? Development is a lengthy process and may not always lead to the desired outcome, however, even unsuccessful prototypes may lead to technological advancement.

Financing Innovation

Our processes help to ensure that the SR&ED program is a risk-mitigated, predictable and non-dilutive growth funding solution for our clients.

 

Your SR&ED claims grow & scale as you do

Unlike other government tax programs, you can apply for SR&ED ever year that eligible work took place in. Receive refunds for development costs, allowing you to grow your team & build more products.