Tax research bonus

Tax research bonus

  • Posted by Gerhard Pramhas
  • On 5. July 2021

Beitragsbild-Forschungsprämie

At 14 % of expenditure on research and experimental development, the tax research premium is an essential instrument for promoting research and from my point of view a good thing. It is a premium that promotes genuine research performance. This tax research premium is tax-free honoured by the Ministry of Finance and thus by all of the tax payers. In the following you will read how you can get to those premiums and if your research achievement is conveyable.

Do you develop or carry out significant improvements to products, materials, devices or processes and thus create solutions that close previous knowledge gaps? If your projects have domestic reference, it is possible that you could receive a tax research bonus.

2 examples for a tax research bonus:

Example 1: You develop a new project and pay EUR 100,000,00 during the tax year. If the project meets the criteria, you receive a tax credit (EUR 14,000,00) from the tax office when you submit your balance.

Example 2: You bought a machine with acquisition costs of EUR 200,000 in 2020. The machine is used at 70% for R&D and at 30 % for other purposes. Thus, 70 % of the acquisition costs (EUR 140,000) are included in the assessment basis of the research bonus. In this case and extrapolated over the years your tax credit for R&D projects totals EUR 159,600.

How do you get to the bonus?

Firstly, you have to be aware of your project. Do you have a R&D project? Pretty sure. The recognition of the potential is the first step into the right direction, but also the most difficult one. For many of you, your own performance is taken for granted and it does not occur very often that you are actually creating something. Therefore, you can ask me. I will give you information whether you have a R&D project or not.

You also play safe with the submission itself. Before you start on your own, it is worthwhile to have all the parameters checked and compiled and then submitted in a structured way. You will see, it is worth it!

Contact me at gerhard@pramhas.eu or 0676-9560164