Why You Should Get a PCC for Your SR&ED Claim

What is a PCC?

Of all the SR&ED claims filed each year, very few are supported by a CRA Pre-Claim Consultation (PCC).  This free service offered by CRA gives businesses a chance to present their SR&ED projects to the CRA prior to filing a claim in order to get an assessment of whether the CRA examiner believes the claim qualifies for SR&ED.

The advantages of getting a PCC are significant.  A PCC showing a positive outcome pretty much guarantees you that your work meets the basic requirements of an SR&ED claim.  If you do the work you say you're going to do, and you file the claim within the terms permitted by CRA, you should get the money.  You can undertake your work reasonably sure that you are not wasting time and effort.

The disadvantages are simple.  It's a lot of work to get a PCC and your SR&ED consultant probably doesn't want to do it.

How can you get a PCC?

The process for getting a PCC is straightforward but not simple.  You start by filling in the SALT form on the CRA website, calling up the number, explaining your project to the CRA Technical Reviewer, and then waiting for a technical reviewer to call you back.  That call-back can take a few weeks to a few months.

As you wait for that call-back, you should prepare a document for the CRA Technical Reviewer to help them understand your project.  This document should be held to high standards of technical writing and should cover the following topics:

1. What is your project about?  What goals are you trying to achieve?  What problem are you trying to solve?

2. What is your hypothesis as to how you can achieve your goals?

3. What experiments are you planning to do to validate your hypothesis?

4. What science informs your hypothesis?

5. What scientific uncertainty exists in your approach?

6. How do you plan to measure your results?

7. Who have you consulted with to guide your research and/or experimental development?  Are these people permanent members of your project team?

When you finally get that call from your technical reviewer, they will ask you about your project and make a decision about whether your project qualifies for a PCC.  If they feel your project lacks credibility, or that it doesn't qualify for any other reason, they may stop the process at this point.  If that happens, you have every right to tweak or change your project and to re-apply for another PCC.

If they decide your project deserves a PCC, they will set a meeting date with you (usually via Microsoft Teams Videoconferencing) at which time you'll have a chance to make your case.  You should make your document available to them at this point, with the intention of informing them about your project prior to the PCC meeting.  Be aware that technical reviewers are human and will often skip or miss important points in a document.  On more than one occasion, we encountered CRA reviewers who did not understand the document at all, and who needed us to explain things to them which had been clearly explained in the document.   Be prepared for this and don't let it frustrate you.  Repeat your points as many times as needed.

Finally, on the day of the PCC meeting, try to have a good team assembled from your side, present your case clearly, focus on the uncertainties and the need for experimental development, and outline clearly how you propose to experiment and measure your results.  Introduce your scientific consultants and play up their qualifications.  Answer the CRA Technical Reviewer's questions patiently and with a focus on scientific credibility.  Let everyone on your team speak at least once.

Then you wait.  Often for months.  The CRA Technical Reviewer will give you an estimate of when your PCC will be ready if you ask them, so ask them at the meeting.  Thankfully they will also have given you their phone number so you can nag them occasionally. Don't overdo that, but feel free to call them every few weeks or so past the deadline they set for themselves.

At the end of the process, you should get a mail in you CRA My Business Account containing your PCC.  It should have the magic words along the lines of, "We have determined that there is SR&ED in this project".  Once you get that, you're good to go.  Your filing should be approved if no other problems are identified, and you should get the grant money you're expecting.

That's too much work!

We know.  We agree.  That's why you shouldn't do it.  Your SR&ED consultant should do it.  And they shouldn't charge you for it, either.  They should brainstorm the project, make contact with the CRA, prepare the huge document for presentation, do the presentation at the PCC meeting, then answer any follow-up questions the CRA Technical Reviewer has.  They should do all of this as part of the three-year contract you sign with them, and they shouldn't charge you a cent for the up-front work.  Everyone should be in this for the long haul, including your SR&ED consultant.

Dymergent has a long history of getting successful PCCs for clients, at no cost whatsoever to the client.  With a successful PCC in hand, we have never been turned down for an SR&ED claim.  That's right, our record is 100% success.  We'd be happy to talk about getting a PCC for your company.