R&D Tax Incentive Registration

Overview

Draft Core and Supporting Activity descriptions for the R&D Tax Incentive annual registration in Australia (AusIndustry and ATO). Targets Tech, Manufacturing, Biotech and other eligible sectors. Core activities must follow Hypothesis–Experiment–Observation–Conclusion (HEOC); use rd_logic_builder when available. The skill includes a validator to ensure descriptions support the salary-to-project nexus so expenditure can be justified against the registered R&D project.

Validation tool

nexus_expenditure_check — Flags if activity descriptions do not support the salary-to-project nexus: (1) missing reference to the R&D project or specific core/supporting activity, (2) missing R&D-eligible language (hypothesis, experiment, technical uncertainty, etc.), (3) vague or generic wording that could apply to non-R&D work. Run it on the activity descriptions document after drafting or updating.

Example

You: I’ve drafted our Core and Supporting Activities for this year’s R&D registration in rd/activities_fy25.md. Can you check that the descriptions support the salary-to-project nexus?

Agent: I’ll run the nexus expenditure check. (Runs nexus_expenditure_check.) The check shows project references and R&D-eligible language are present. One section uses “general support”; consider tying that activity to a specific core experiment or outcome so the nexus is explicit. I can suggest wording from the reference if you want.

Excerpt of activity descriptions

The agent structures core activities with clear HEOC and links supporting activities to the project:

## Core Activity 1 — [Project name/ID]

**Hypothesis:** Whether [technical uncertainty] can be resolved by [approach].

**Experiment:** [Trials, prototypes, methods used.]

**Observation:** [What was measured or observed.]

**Conclusion:** [What was learned; uncertainty resolved or not.]

## Supporting Activity 1

Directly supports Core Activity 1 by [e.g. feasibility, data collection, testing]. [Specific link to project and eligible R&D work.]

Getting Started

Add your R&D project context and any existing activity drafts to the project workspace, then activate the R&D Tax Incentive Registration skill. Use rd_logic_builder for HEOC on core activities; run nexus_expenditure_check before finalising for registration.