Your SR&ED claim could have been deemed “ineligible” or “unsubstantiated”.

If “ineligible”, we will tell you if we agree with CRA, so that you don’t engage in a lengthy and futile battle. If “unsubstantiated”, we can help you find the evidence, and present the arguments that may lead to a reversal of your denial.

If your denial has already been sent in for processing at a taxation centre, you have no escalation options available any more. You can’t ask for a second administrative review, you can’t re-write your SR&ED claim, you can’t provide more evidence or arguments, and the SR&ED CRA Reviewer will not meet you again on this case. If you want the denial reversed, you must file an Appeal.

It’s important to understand what “appeals” really means. You are submitting a grievance to a body of the CRA; in other words, they are not exactly impartial. This is CRA providing a second opinion on the findings of their own employees.

In order to be successful, we will need to articulate your rationale for eligibility very clearly. You also need to provide convincing evidence. Bond can do this work for you.

Bond Consulting Group will never recommend that you pursue a case with no hope of approval. However, if we feel that your case was unjustly denied, we will present you with a fair proposal and we will do everything within our power to win your appeal. Bond Consulting Group does not give up!

Don’t despair! Even though you may not think it’s worth it to file an appeal, you MUST file an appeal if you want to have your case heard by the Tax Court of Canada. Bond Consulting will advise you on your chances in Tax Court.

Believe it or not, you could have a better chance of approval with the Tax Court of Canada over CRA audit or CRA appeals.

After you have filed your Notice of Objection, you can wait for a verdict that can take as long as 2 years, or wait only 90 days and then file directly with the Courts.

You can file as Informal Procedure if you don’t mind the $25,000 fiscal year limit. If your denial is substantially above this amount, you will want to consider General Procedure. The Informal Procedure is still court with a real tax court judge, but you don’t have to go through the arduous, and potentially expensive discoveries process.

Whether Informal or General Procedure, you will find the following advantages in Tax Court.

• The Judge looks at your case based upon the “balance of probabilities” which is a much lower bar than CRA uses during audit or appeals.
• The Judge is not a technologist and takes a common sense approach to eligibility.
• The Judge will be familiar with the “the spirit of the legislation”, that is, SR&ED Tax Credit is as an incentive program, whereas CRA often administers SR&ED as a compliance program.
• The Judge will be interested in comparing your work to that which was known in the public domain.
• You can call expert witnesses to testify.
• A judge looks at evidence in a subjective manner – was the evidence provided reasonable enough and consistent enough in order to satisfy the judge.
• The Judge will consider whether the claimant is credible.

If your case is below the Informal Tax Court Threshold ($25,000 ITC per fiscal year), then Bond can handle your case without a litigator.

If your case is above this Threshold, then you’re looking at the General Procedure. Bond has partnered up with Tax Litigators to move your case forward on those cases as well. Bond provides specialty SR&ED Policy guidance, and the litigators push your case through the court system.

Bond starts off by assessing your chances of success. As always, Bond will not lead you down a futile path when your chances to prevail are slim.

If we find that your case has merit, we will provide you with a fair proposal, and we will explain the whole process to you.