Bruce Braithwaite's blog
The CMF announces preliminary program budget and performance envelopes
The Canada Media Fund (CMF) announced on 31st March, 2011 their preliminary program budget for the upcoming year (2012) will amount to $271,000,000.
NRC to focus on four "poster child" projects
The National Research Council is quietly planning to divert a large proportion of its budget to a small number of new “poster child” projects that it believes to be of national importance.
The decision — not yet publicly announced — comes from president John McDougall, who has already notified his staff that he wants to see more work in direct support of industry and less “curiosity” research, or pure science.
Minister of Finance Proposes Amendments Concerning the Income Tax Treatment of Certain Expenditures
Today the Minister of Finance tabled a Notice of Ways and Means Motion proposing amendments to the Income Tax Act.
Treatment of Employee Stock Options
It has been proposed that the amount of an expenditure allowable to a taxpayer, and upon which a tax credit or deduction may be claimed, is limited to the amount actually disbursed by the taxpayer.
Minister Proposes Extending Carry-Forward Periods for Business Losses and Investment Tax Credits
Today as part of an Economic and Fiscal Update the Minister of Finance proposed that the period for which non-capital losses and investment tax credits can be carried back and forward be extended. Non-capital losses can currently be carried back up to 3 years and can also be carried forward. The 2004 budget extended the period over which non-capital losses can be carried forward from 7 to 10 years. It has now been proposed to extend the non-capital loss carry-forward period of all taxpayers to 20 years.
General Rules Concerning the Treatment of Government and Non-Government Assistance
Today the CRA released a new Application Policy concerning the treatment of government and non-government assistance as it relates to the SR&ED. The paper makes a strong statement on the CRA’s position that projects that government assistance is applied on a project by project basis, and that the value of any individual project can never be reduced below zero.
New Application Policy Paper on Shared-Use-Equipment
Today the CRA released a new Application Policy Paper on Shared-Use-Equipment.
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the application of the rules for shared-use-equipment (SUE) and prescribed depreciable property (PDP) when administering the scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) legislation under the Income Tax Act (the Act) and the Income Tax Regulations (the Regulations).
Addition to Application Policy on Plastics Materials, Processing, Equipment and Tool Making Guidance Document
Today the CRA released materials on “validation” as an addition to this policy paper. The CRA provided the following statement with this release. ” The “Plastics Materials, Processing, Equipment & Tool Making” guidance document deals mainly with plastics processing and mould making issues . A CRA/industry task force is presently completing this document with a final section on scale-up and related issues. The first part of this section deals with validation; it was added in August 2005.
Revision to Application Policy SR&ED 2002-02R Dated July 29, 2005
Today the CRA issued version R2 of the above cited application policy. They state in the policy that the purpose of the revision is to clarify the methodology that claimants should use to distinguish between experimental production (EP) and experimental development (ED) work that occurs in conjunction or simultaneously with commercial production (CP+ED). EP and the ED part of CP+ED are eligible. The purpose of distinguishing between EP and CP+ED is to isolate the ineligible CP.
Extension of time to file older version T661 form
Today the CRA announced the deadline for accepting the old Form T661(03) has been extended until September 30, 2005. Claims filed after that date must be filed on the new Form T661(04). CRA has published on its web site a summary of changes to the new form.
Draft Legislation and Explanatory Notes Regarding Technical Amendments to the Income Tax Act Affecting SR&ED Tax Credit Claims
On July 18, 2005 Ralph Goodale released a series of revised legislative proposals to make technical amendments the Income Tax Act. A summary of the proposals likely to affect SR&ED tax credit claims appears below.
Better response to cases in which a corporation is associated with more, fewer or different corporations in one taxation year than in the past.
