Guidance for submitting your criteria and methodologies application

When filling in your application in myIR, you can save your progress at any time by clicking 'Save draft'. To support your claim, you'll be able to upload documents as evidence for your activities.

Note that drafts will only be saved for 20 days.

Once you've organised all the information below, you'll be ready to submit your criteria and methodologies (CAM) application.

Submit a criteria and methodologies application for your R&D activities

Significant performer election

You'll need to declare you will spend over $2 million per year on eligible R&D activities. If you do not, you will not be able to complete your CAM application.

If you've already elected to be a significant performer for 2019-2020 (year 1), you will be required to complete the criteria and methodology approval application.

Estimated eligible R&D expenditure

Enter the amounts of estimated eligible R&D expenditure. You'll need amounts for each year you want the CAM approval for, either 1, 2 or a maximum of 3 years.

You'll also need to answer whether you have eligible expenditure in:

• commercial production
• feedstock
• overseas R&D.

This is also where you let us know if:

• your activities included internal software development
• you received any government funding for your activities.

Associated parties

List the names and IRD numbers of any members if you're applying on behalf of a consolidated group.

Tell us the associated parties being covered by your CAM application. You'll need their:

• names
• IRD numbers
• relationships to you.

Activities and governance

You can separate the following information into separate documents or have them all in 1 document to upload. You'll need to give us a description of:

• business, which can be general and high-level
• type of R&D typically carried out
• R&D activities within those types
• systems, processes, documentation, governance and controls used to work out whether your R&D activities are eligible or ineligible.

Accounting and expenditure

You can separate the following information into separate documents or have them all in 1 document to upload. You'll need to give us a description of:

• how expenditure on R&D is identified and recorded in your ledgers and financial statements
• the systems, procedures, governance and controls used to identify and classify your R&D expenditures, for example, the use of project IDs
• where expenditure is apportioned between eligible R&D activities and other activities, as well as how the apportionment is calculated and the reason for this method
• what assets are used in your R&D activities
• the documents and process used for recording your eligible expenditure
• where overheads are being attributed to eligible R&D activities, the nature of those overheads and how they relate to R&D.

Contact details

List the contact details for the person who is principally responsible for your CAM application. You'll need to provide their:

• first name
• last name
• role
• country for the contact phone number
• type of phone, for example, a mobile
• phone number
• email.

Other information

You can let us know if there is any other information to support your CAM application.

More resources

For more detailed guidance on the R&D tax incentive (RDTI), see the Research and Development Tax Incentive: Guidance - IR1240.

You can also use our 'How-To' guides on our website dedicated to RDTI.

R&D Tax Incentive (rdti.govt.nz)