On Friday 29 June 2018, Exposure Draft (ED) legislation and the associated Explanatory Materials were released for public consultation. These seek to enact the 2018-19 Federal Budget announcements made on 8 May 2018 to narrow the benefits available under the current R&D Tax Incentive program.

A consultation paper was released at the same time, with the government seeking specific formal feedback and public comments on the proposed implementation of a number of key issues.

These measures represent the government’s formal response to the Review of the R&D Tax Incentive originally released in September 2016. The proposed amendments seek to address certain perceptions that the existing program requires fine-tuning to achieve the intended innovation policy outcomes of “additionality” and “spillover” benefits.