Plain-Language Glossary — R&D Tax & Grants | Tobbie Capital Advisory
The vocabulary of funding, in plain language — the terms that appear in every R&D and grants conversation, explained without jargon.
Plain-Language Glossary
Know the words,
negotiate the room.
Term
Technical uncertainty
You couldn't know in advance whether an approach would work — competent professionals had to experiment. The heart of R&D eligibility.
Term
Core vs supporting activities
Core = the experiments themselves. Supporting = work directly for them (prototyping, data collection, testing). Different evidentiary bars.
Term
Notional deduction
The eligible R&D spend the offset is calculated on — payroll, contractors, materials, decline in value of plant used in experiments.
Term
R&D intensity
Eligible spend as a share of total expenses — decides the tier for companies over $20M (8.5% up to 2%; 16.5% beyond).
Term
Co-contribution
Your share of a project's cost that a grant won't cover — often 50% or more, and it must be real money you can spend.
Term
Acquittal
The report proving you spent the grant on what you said you would — every promise in the application comes home here.
Term
Rubric
The published scoring criteria an assessor must apply. Write to the rubric, not to your own excitement.
Term
Refundable offset
The tax offset that pays cash even when the company owes no tax — the loss-position benefit: 43.5% for entities under $20M.
Term
EMDG cycle
The annual window in which export-promotion spend is claimed — miss it and the spend waits a year.
"Half of every funding negotiation is knowing what the terms actually mean. The other half is evidence."
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