In developing a financial trading technology using artificial intelligence, you should definitely consider claiming as it sounds like its right up the alley of the R&D Tax Incentive. However whether it qualifies or not depends just as much on how you go about your software development as it does what you are trying to create. The government is looking for development that has elements of experimentation within it.
To benefit must also be spending money on your R&D, typically wages, contractors costs and overheads are claimed for software development. Finally you need to be spending the money through a correct entity, a proprietary limited company. Those are the basic hoops to jump through, but everyones situation is different and being a tax based scheme it is very dependent on the taxation situation your company is in, as to whether it is worthwhile to pursue and what benefit you could get.
As Hamish said it’s a pretty handy benefit for startups being an entitlement that’s 45cents on the dollar for your R&D spend. The most important part is that it can come back to you as a tax refund, which would apply to most pre revenue startups.
One thing to keep in mind is that claims are made on an annual basis, with a deadline of 10 months after the end of the financial year. If you are looking to claim expenses from 2013/14 financial year, you have less than 2 weeks now until that (30th April) deadline to register a claim.
Also, thanks Hugh for the shoutout, I’m glad that we’re starting to make a difference for Aussie tech startups.