Tax Benefits

SIFIDE is very broad in terms of potential beneficiaries: it is sufficient to be a company resident in Portuguese territory and carrying out an activity of an agricultural, industrial, commercial or service nature, or a non-resident company but with a permanent establishment in that territory.

The latter must fulfil the following cumulative conditions: taxable profits cannot be determined by indirect methods; it must not be liable to the State or Social Security for any contributions, taxes or levies and must have its payment duly ensured.

Finally, in both cases they must present Research & Development (R&D) expenditure. If these conditions are met, any company, whether service or not, is eligible under SIFIDE.

Yes. Any company can apply for SIFIDE, provided it fulfills the conditions mentioned above, simply by having R&D expenditure, which can happen through investment in funds.

As far as conducting R&D internally is concerned, this can happen formally - when there are dedicated departments and laboratories that continuously carry out R&D activities - but also informally.

Development teams, production teams, or even support teams can carry out R&D projects, either as part of a strategy or on a one-off basis to solve certain problems.

The key point in separating an R&D project from an engineering project or an industrial activity is the existence of an appreciable element of novelty and the resolution of a scientific and/or technological uncertainty.

This can be very easy to spot - a product that dictates a significant advance over the state of the art, but also often in problem solving, whether in what is your core business, your products, development, or production processes, or in less obvious areas and/or processes.

No. First, as an R&D project there is an associated risk, an uncertainty that needs to be resolved and, at the outset, it is not known how. Therefore, the project may not achieve its objectives. That is, to be successfully completed.

On the other hand, as already mentioned, projects may not focus on products or services that reach the market. As we have already seen, these may be internal to the companies. By the way, it should also be noted that although SIFIDE is annual, projects may last longer than one year.

In these cases, the overall objectives of the project are presented first, and the project as a whole is defended. Then the work carried out in the year in question is discussed.

The application is assessed by the National Innovation Agency (ANI) which - in case of approval - issues a declaration certifying the realisation of R&D activities by the company and the tax credit to which the company is entitled.

This declaration, together with the application form and its attachments which include, for example, an R&D balance sheet supporting the costs submitted, constitute the tax file.

As far as the benefit is concerned, companies then enter this value in Model 22, deducting the tax benefit from the tax payable.

Some companies value the benefits of SIFIDE so much that they fear losing them when applying for other R&D support mechanisms.

But the truth is that they do not lose them. SIFIDE can include financed projects, internal projects of the company - not subject to incentive -, or projects of both types, and there is no maximum number of projects per SIFIDE. In the case of funded projects, the tax benefit only applies to the percentage of investment that was not incentivised.

In cases where projects are not incentivised, the conditions remain the same.

If the investments fulfil the other requirements and conditions to qualify for RFAI, a company may have more than one RFAI project running simultaneously.

As an example, if a company has an ongoing SI Productive Innovation project of PT2020, in which it is benefiting from the RFAI on the same investment expenses and, in addition, has other "extra-project" investments that also constitute eligible expenses under this tax benefit, the latter configures another investment project.

This possibility is provided for in the Model 22 periodic income statement itself, i.e., in table 078-A of Annex D, where all the information on regional investment projects is placed, it is possible to add autonomous lines depending on the number of projects that the company has underway.

Recognition of an item as an intangible asset requires an entity to demonstrate that the item meets, first, the definition itself and, second, the criteria for its recognition.

NCRF 6 establishes three conditions for an expenditure to be defined as such an asset: identifiability, control, and future economic benefits.

It is therefore concluded, provided these conditions are met, that an intangible asset is subject to impairment if it has a limited duration.

Yes. All commercial or civil companies in commercial form, cooperatives, public companies, and other legal persons governed by public or private law with registered office or effective management in Portuguese territory, may deduct an amount corresponding to the conventional remuneration of share capital (RCCS), calculated by applying, limited to each financial year, the rate of 7% to the amount of contributions made up to 2M€.

This tax benefit is deducted in the calculation of the taxable profit for the tax period in which the contributions are made and in the following five tax periods. These contributions may be made by cash contributions, the conversion of credits, the use of the profits of the year itself in the context of the incorporation of a company or the increase of share capital, provided that the profit of the beneficiary companies is not determined by indirect methods and does not reduce its share capital with refund to the shareholders, either in the tax period in which the contributions are made or in the following five tax periods.

The Tax Authority has been considering that a tangible fixed asset is considered to be in "new condition" if it has not previously been part of the non-current assets of the company that intends to benefit from the tax benefit or of any other company.

Yes, it is eligible. This PPA has raised several doubts about its framework, as it may fall within the exception of eligible activities in the RFAI, more specifically in the sector of processing and marketing of agricultural products.

Where the activity of 'processing agricultural products' is concerned, it is only possible to benefit from the RFAI if the final product resulting from it is not an agricultural product according to the definition provided for in the TFEU and, as such, is not included in the list in Annex I to the Treaty.

Although Annex I to the TFEU includes several headings of Chapter 15 of the CN, it does not include heading 1509 which includes "Olive oil and its fractions, whether or not refined, but not chemically modified", so it can be concluded that CAE 10412 is eligible under the RFAI, provided that the other requirements and conditions are met in order to enjoy this tax benefit.