Companies seeking to claim overseas expenditure, or seeking an advance determination on eligibility of a project must lodge a finding Application period to the end of the financial year in which the activity is first conducted (i.e. 30 June for activities in FY20).
During a finding process, AusIndustry provides a binding determination of eligibility, and an enormous amount of work must be put into such applications, including the collation of a vast amount of supporting evidence.
There is no provision with the relevant legislation and guidelines allowing for extensions to be granted for finding applications, and specifically, Part 3 of the IR&D Decision Making Principals do not apply to Advance and Overseas Findings.
This means that such findings must be submitted by 30 June.
AusIndustry have however announced this week that due to the COVID-19 disruptions they will accept a ‘provisional’ Advance or Overseas Finding application for the YE 30 June 2020, containing a lower amount of information and supporting evidence than would normally be required.
The minimum details required in a provisional Advance or Overseas Finding application are:
- Company contact details;
- Descriptive name/title of claimed R&D activities.
Companies submitting a provisional Advance or Overseas Finding application, must then submit the balance of information and supporting evidence by 30 September 2020.
Companies will not be able to claim any overseas R&D Expenditure in FY20 until such time as AusIndustry receive all relevant information for the finding application, complete their assessment, and issue a positive finding.
More information is available here.
