In principle anyone with eligible work can apply. Its even possible for unincorporated individuals to claim SR&ED on personal tax.
I would recommend though that you go to one of the public info sessions held in your area, since there are various angles to be aware of, that will help you optimize your claim. For example:
- a small Canadian corp typically gets a better rate than a claim on personal tax;
- if you're a "specified employee" (meaning you own 10% or more of the corp) they place certain caps on things like how much of the "proxy amount" you can apply in your claim
- a lot of the claim revolves around how much of your expenses was for eligible work. You typically have to be careful that a founder who is also doing marketing etc, is only claiming for the portion of time spent on the R&D part.
They go into all of this in the public info sessions, and they typically have specialists from various SR&ED areas available to answer pretty much any question.
You can also call them on various info lines, e.g. they offer a "first-time claimant" service where they try to make it easier for people looking at doing a first SR&ED claim, even coming out to visit your business if helpful.
They also offer a "preclaim project review" service where they'll give you a prelim opinion on the eligibility of a project, without you having to file a formal claim. (While this is not guarantee, it can for instance be used while raising funding, to demonstrate to prospective investors that you have a reasonable expectation of getting SR&ED support).
Great thanks. What deters me is R&D, if someone wants to make a Saas web application, say something like basecamp, to me there isn't really much research required other than what is already publicly available in books/tutorials.
How can someone receive a grant for something like that? (Or do you have to fudge the truth?)
I would recommend though that you go to one of the public info sessions held in your area, since there are various angles to be aware of, that will help you optimize your claim. For example:
- a small Canadian corp typically gets a better rate than a claim on personal tax;
- if you're a "specified employee" (meaning you own 10% or more of the corp) they place certain caps on things like how much of the "proxy amount" you can apply in your claim
- a lot of the claim revolves around how much of your expenses was for eligible work. You typically have to be careful that a founder who is also doing marketing etc, is only claiming for the portion of time spent on the R&D part.
They go into all of this in the public info sessions, and they typically have specialists from various SR&ED areas available to answer pretty much any question.
You can also call them on various info lines, e.g. they offer a "first-time claimant" service where they try to make it easier for people looking at doing a first SR&ED claim, even coming out to visit your business if helpful.
They also offer a "preclaim project review" service where they'll give you a prelim opinion on the eligibility of a project, without you having to file a formal claim. (While this is not guarantee, it can for instance be used while raising funding, to demonstrate to prospective investors that you have a reasonable expectation of getting SR&ED support).
In fact there are a lot of public info sessions coming up in the near future: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/txcrdt/sred-rsde/smnr-eng.html