Rocking Horse Group

The Quick Version The R&D Tax Incentive changes announced in the May 2026 Federal Budget include seven proposed reforms, headlined by a 4.5 percentage point increase to the core offset rate and the removal of supporting R&D activities from the eligible ba

The Quick Version R&D Tax Incentive financing is a loan secured against your expected R&DTI rebate, giving you access to up to 80% of the rebate before the ATO pays out Lending is based on eligible R&D expenditure you've already incurred during the curren

The Quick Version Australian businesses spent $24.4 billion on R&D in 2023-24, yet R&D commercialisation in Australia remains a persistent challenge, with the country ranking 30th globally for innovation outputs despite ranking 18th for inputs The gap bet

A guide to alternative finance in Australia for startup founders, from invoice finance and revenue-based lending to R&D finance.

The quick version The R&D Tax Incentive provides a tax offset, not taxable income - the cash refund from the refundable offset is generally not treated as assessable income by the ATO However, the R&D expenditure that generated the offset is claimed as a

The quick version Australian founders have access to a range of startup support programs, from government grants and accelerators to the R&D Tax Incentive (R&DTI) Key federal programmes include the Industry Growth Program (currently paused to new applicat

The Quick Version Your first R&D loan doesn't have to be your last for the financial year As eligible R&D expenditure grows quarter by quarter, so does the amount you can potentially borrow against Repeat R&D loans let you draw down additional funding as

Five themes every R&D-active business should be watching Australia's innovation ecosystem has matured well beyond early-stage nurturing, with programs like CSIRO's ON Initiative now having upskilled over 8,500 researchers and helped attract more than $800

The Quick Version The gap between incurring R&D spend and receiving your rebate (your company tax rate plus an 18.5% premium, which works out to 43.5% for most eligible SMEs) can stretch beyond 15 months, and tighter ATO compliance activity in 2025-26 is

You've just closed a quarter where your engineering team shipped three major features, refactored your authentication system, and started building a new customer portal. Your finance lead asks: "Which of these costs should we capitalise?" The question sou