R&D Tax Incentive claims: the documentation mistakes that trigger ATO reviews

The R&D Tax Incentive is one of the most valuable concessions available to Australian businesses — and one of the most heavily scrutinised. The ATO and AusIndustry have both stepped up compliance activity, and the claims that attract attention share a common weakness: documentation created after the fact.

Contemporaneous documentation means records made at the time the work was done — hypotheses set out before experiments began, results recorded as they occurred, and conclusions linked back to the original technical uncertainty. Claims reconstructed at year-end from invoices and timesheets rarely withstand review, even where the underlying activity was genuinely eligible.

The fix is process, not paperwork volume. A simple documentation framework — maintained as the R&D progresses — protects the claim, speeds up preparation, and materially reduces review risk. If your last claim was assembled retrospectively, this is the year to change the approach.