{"id":11136,"date":"2019-04-25T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.zapliance.com\/?p=11136"},"modified":"2022-08-26T13:31:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T13:31:21","slug":"open-road-ahead-for-innovation-thanks-to-research-allowances-from-the-german-tax-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.zapliance.com\/en\/blog\/open-road-ahead-for-innovation-thanks-to-research-allowances-from-the-german-tax-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Open road ahead for innovation thanks to research allowances from the German tax office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The importance of research and development in terms of innovative capacity is difficult to deny. But, until now, companies have usually been left to their own devices when it comes to answering the question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd who is going to pay for it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this all looks set to change in the future, if a draft bill for the Research Allowance Act (Forschungszulagengesetz \u2013 FZulG<\/em>) proposed by the German Federal Ministry of Finance (Bundesministerium f\u00fcr Finanzen \u2013 BMF<\/em>) is anything to go by. In this article, you can find out how the audit department can contribute to this process and why an innovation audit makes sense based on the draft bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, our guest author Jan Schnedler has already cited various reasons for the failure of corporate start-ups as a result of company spin-offs. You can find these two articles here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, when it comes to driving innovation, corporate start-ups are not always an adequate solution. But this is no reason to neglect or even block innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, quite the opposite is true, because research and development (R&D) is an important investment for many companies in order to increase their productivity and competitiveness. In a fast-moving environment, R&D must be medium- and long-term oriented. Due to their plannability, tax incentives for R&D can provide significant and valuable support, which is where the draft bill proposed by the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) for the FZulG comes in. The Law on Tax Incentives for Research and Development (Gesetz zur steuerlichen F\u00f6rderung von Forschung und Entwicklung \u2013 FZulG<\/em>) \u2013 to give it its full title \u2013 provides for the introduction of a tax allowance for research. This allowance will not depend on the assessment basis of the income calculation and neither will it be based on the tax to be determined. It is intended to have the same effect on all companies regardless of the particular profit situation. The plan is to introduce a new tax incentive scheme for R&D with its components of basic research, industrial research and experimental development, which will be applied to personnel expenses and will apply to all taxable enterprises regardless of their size or the type of activity carried out in the enterprise (as defined by the classification of economic sectors). The aid is governed by a separate tax law which is ancillary to the German Income Tax and Corporation Tax Acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have already had the chance to examine the bill on at least one occasion and the most important facts can be summarized as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n