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Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

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Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#41

Post by brennanm »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #29
brennanm wrote: post #23

A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries" You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when y…

In theory SRED is supposed to be for R&D. You'd be surprised what can count for R&D. Doing A/B testing to solve the problem of which UI is more preferred/efficient? That can count for SRED work.

What works in practice wouldn't be held up in an audit. Depending on the mood of your approving agent they can deny the whole application if you mention specific interface words.

You'd be better off creating and Irap project to cover UI and business logic items. IRAP is out of the same government fund but pays slightly less for a project as you go, not one lump at the end of the year.

IRAP and SRED are mutually exclusive but if you spend time thinking about it you'd be able to decide work to fit into both nicely.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#42

Post by pyre »

pugsawakening wrote: post #15

I'm currently a beneficiary of SRED in a startup context in Canada. The first thing to note is that it doesn't solve many major problems. The lack of development talent is the biggest one; trying to get someone to move from California to Canada isn't something that's solved as simply as offering more money. And in my experience (as a recent graduate), the talent that would have studied computer science or has an inte…

> The lack of development talent is the biggest one

My opinion is that it's less about lack of talent and more about hiring being hard (in general).

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#43

Post by dataminer »

erichate wrote: post #31
dataminer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will still come out ahead in SF vs Toronto http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

interesting site, plugged in Victoria Canada (city my company is in) and numbers seemed a little off for rent currently listed in craigslist. +170% on website more like +300% from quick look in craigslist. also doesn't factor in time commuting, quality of life, avg hrs worked per day, etc... would love to see a pay breakdown $$ / hr worked (at office).

The data is crowd sourced so it may deviate, you can contribute your data to keep it aligned. Also the quality of life and commuting comparisons can be done from the pull down menu in the header.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#44

Post by oalders »

brennanm wrote: post #41
9oliYQjP wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory SRED is supposed to be for R&D. You'd be surprised what can count for R&D. Doing A/B testing to solve the problem of which UI is more preferred/efficient? That can count for SRED work.

What works in practice wouldn't be held up in an audit. Depending on the mood of your approving agent they can deny the whole application if you mention specific interface words. You'd be better off creating and Irap project to cover UI and business logic items. IRAP is out of the same government fund but pays slightly less for a project as you go, not one lump at the end of the year. IRAP and SRED are mutually exclu…

I had to go through the whole SRED song and dance at my previous $work. The company writing up the proposal was really eager to get the numbers high, but the when the government agent came down to the office to go over the expenses the whole experience was so painful that the owners of company decide to pass on even applying for SRED in subsequent years.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#45

Post by Istof »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #7

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

here is how a standard poutine should look like for anyone who doesn't know: https://www.google.com/search?q=ashton+poutine+images

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#46

Post by alanpca »

pugsawakening wrote: post #38
oldspiceman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have any problems filing the papers with the provincial/federal govs? I'm guessing it's a lot of work.

It is work, and about as arcane as you would expect a government form to be. You need to track your eligible hours for SRED on a weekly basis or throughout the week (as an employee). As an owner you need to deal with capital expenditures as well.

Are you filing yourself, or do you use one of the organizations that take a cut?

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#47

Post by 9oliYQjP »

personZ wrote: post #39
9oliYQjP wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick to SRED is to hire an outside expert who will work on contingency to get a percentage of the SRED rebate they generate. There are many companies providing this service. These folks are experts on writing the necessary reports/forms given your engineers have written detailed logs of their work. Don't try to do SRED yourself. It's just one of those things, like hiring a lawyer, where it's complete lunacy to d…

The trick to SRED is to hire an outside expert who will work on contingency to get a percentage of the SRED rebate they generate. This is the scam of SRED. It is unfortunate that we are at this place. There is absolutely nothing difficult about SRED (it is absolutely no more difficult than any other completely banal corporate submission), beyond understanding the magic terminology and phrasing that will get your subm…

Oh I completely agree. SRED shouldn't be difficult. I think the actual practice is more complicated though, having had to go through it. If you do it on your own you risk leaving a whole lot of money on the table, opening yourself up to a filing which won't stand up to an audit, or both. It's just one of those things I'd rather leave to somebody who deals with Revenue Canada on the same issue day in and day out. There are pretty scummy companies doing SRED returns but there are also decent ones who are professional and above board.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#48

Post by teamonkey »

stormbrew wrote: post #4
VonGuard wrote: post #2

Canada was already doing this for the games industry, though not at 80%. It worked. Look at all the studios in Montreal. Perhaps it could work again for the startup culture. It's cold enough up there in the winter that going outside is horrible, so why not stay inside and code!

The article is really light on details, but I'm pretty sure it's not describing anything new. It's just SR&ED (lovingly called shred colloquially) and related provincial programs, which have been around for a long time (in their modern form since at least 1994). In fact, it's probably fair to say that almost every tech employee (and many non-tech employees) in Canada has been under an SR&ED grant whether they knew it…

The requirements are quite specific. As a designer I didn't qualify for shred when I got here, but programmer colleagues (with an appropriate degree) did.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#49

Post by danpat »

elchief wrote: post #32
null_ptr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the work atmosphere more relaxed in Canada? For that matter, do the East Coast/West Coast culture stereotypes hold true for Canada?

It's more relaxed in Vancouver and Halifax. Less so in Toronto.

Super relaxed here in Canmore :-)
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