Significant changes to the catalogue of costs eligible for R&D relief announced
The government's work schedule includes an amendment to the CIT Act regarding the catalogue of costs eligible for the R&D tax credit.
As explained by Karolina Łukasik, Project Manager at Thedy & Partners, the most significant change is the removal of the requirement to purchase services exclusively from entities listed in the Act on Higher Education and Science, from Article 18d(2)(3) of the CIT Act, i.e. concerning the deduction of costs of expert opinions, opinions, advisory services and equivalent services as well as scientific research for the purposes of research and development activity. Basically, in this respect we are talking about so-called scientific entities, e.g. universities or state research institutes.
As the regulations currently stand, only the Company’s possession of the formal status of a research and development centre, granted by the Ministry of Development and Technology, in principle entitles it to deduct cooperation with any entity with regard to the purchase of services for the research and development activity carried out.
The removal of this restriction will certainly be a great benefit for entities that, for objective reasons, cannot cooperate with scientific entities.
In addition, it seems that this change would allow the costs of collaborators employed on the basis of B2B contracts to be accounted for. This would certainly be of significant benefit, as in the current state of the R&D relief provisions, it is not possible to deduct the costs of subcontractors’ services as part of ongoing R&D activities.
Assuming a positive conclusion to the legislative path of the proposed changes to the R&D relief, this will be a real change for entrepreneurs who, thanks to it, will be able to conduct R&D activity with greater flexibility.
The draft also provides for supplementing the catalogue of costs with the possibility of deducting certain costs of inspections, maintenance of R&D apparatus or transport costs related to R&D.
The above change is in line with the positive approach to extending the tax relief for enterprises performing R&D in Poland.