Usually when we talk about claiming for SR&ED, we talk about how it affects CCPCs. For this reason, I wanted to touch specifically on public companies today. In the future, I will also be dedicating posts specifically to partnerships, foreign-owned and other types of companies eligible for SRED.
While being a public company may not be as attractive as a CCPC when it comes to the SRED program, there are still some benefits that the SR&ED program provides for public companies that conduct research and development in Canada. Public companies can earn an ITC (investment tax credit) of 20% of qualified SR&ED expenditures.
This means that 20% of the claim will go towards any taxes that the public company owes; the tax credit is non-refundable, but can be applied to taxes owing up to three years or 10 years forward. While it’s not as exciting to get tax credits as it is to get a refund, this can still help out a company quite a bit.
There are also the provincial SRED programs to take a look at. Most provinces have their own programs to help companies (both private and public) perform R&D in the province. We’ve outlined what provincial tax credits are offered in a previous article that we had published.