8 key questions to improve your R & D descriptions

The SR & ED project description is a short 1500-word (approximately 3-page) text inserted into Form T661 that describes your claimed project and is intended to provide the reader of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) with clear answers to his or her questions. .

This text is extremely important because it is on reading that these CRA advisers will decide whether they need additional information, or even trigger a technical audit. And you do not want a technical audit. Believe me.

Selling ​​business benefits or technology challenges

Too often the taxpayer thinks he has answered well but he did not say the right things, he forgot the most important information. what do your descriptions look like? Is it case 1 or 2?

Case 1: Sales Description – Presenting the benefits of your technologies, or features that distinguish it from the competition. That’s how we are used to communicate to our customers.

Case 2: Scientific or technological description – The CRA seeks a “systematic scientific or technological investigation or search, carried out through experimentation or analysis, that is, work undertaken in the interest of technological progress in the creation of new materials, devices, products or processes or the improvement, even slight, of those that exist “.

Be critical

Even if you have a R & D consultant, you MUST take one last critical look at your text BEFORE submitting your SR & ED claim. If you write as case 1 you maximize your chances of a technical audit visit. If it is not this year, it will be soon. Believe me. You can not be lucky every year.

8 Questions

Here are 8 super-relevant questions and remarks to ask yourself while analyzing your technical descriptions. Your text must satisfy each of them: Have you:

1. Precisely defined the desired progress and associated technology.
2. Established your knowledge base, information, references and technologies which were available to you at the beginning of the project.
3. Insisted on an experimental development by studying and modifying known techniques in documented activities. TRIAL AND ERROR process IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR SR & ED
4. Systematically brought definitions of policies that link uncertainty / objectives and knowledge base.
5. Said how, according to what approach, and not with what means.
6. Linked the uncertainty to the technology and not to the field where the technology is applied.
7. Attached the progress to the technology and not to the field where the technology is applied.
8. Linked the knowledge base to progress and technology and not to the field where the technology is applied.

Picture a boat in the storm

In summary, the reader must feel the technical challenges, the moments when you scratched your head because there was no current technological solution. He must understand your experimental process. As an inspiration, explain your process as if you were running a boat in the middle of a storm but going on with courage.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these are sometimes difficult questions to answer. But this is essential to minimize the risk of a technical audit that you really do not want to undergo.

We are honored by your visit to our blog. R & D Action thanks you for that.

On the right of this page the index shows several other categories of practical and applicable solutions for you.

Be our guest.

Did you like your reading? Tell us so. What should be added? What topics are you interested in?

You did not like this reading? Tell us so. What did you like least about this text? How can we best meet your needs?