In addition to timekeeping and progress tracking, there are a number of other matters that need to be administered. For example, you must report the hours worked. While your payroll administrator generally ensures the correct tax deduction, you are ultimately responsible for this yourself. Here, we discuss what else needs to be tracked besides hours and progress.
Naturally, the contribution reduction must have been applied correctly. Not started too early, not applied too much, and distributed over the reporting periods according to the rules. Reporting the number of hours worked is mandatory. You can read more about this further down this page. The BSNs of the employees who worked on the WBSO during the year must also be submitted.
The application and the decision (award) are an integral part of your WBSO administration. We handled the application for you and emailed you the application and any attachments after submission. Once a decision has been made on your application, we will also send you the decision and the so-called R&D declaration. You should forward these to your payroll administrator, but also save them in your records along with the application and the attachment. If there has been any correspondence with RVO.nl regarding the application, you must also retain that correspondence with the application and the award.
You may submit a maximum of four applications per year that will (partially) overlap. All application periods in a year end on December 31. Please note that for each application, only the hours and any costs and expenses included in that application that were incurred during the relevant application period count. If you have been awarded 1,000 hours for the period January through December and another 1,000 hours for the period July through December, and you worked 1,200 hours in the first half and 800 in the second, then you may only report 1,000 + 800 hours. If it is the other way around, that is fine. You must keep the application documents together in the records for that calendar year.
This section is not mandatory in your records, but it is advisable to set up a part of them for this purpose. Ultimately, you are applying for the WBSO for the financial benefit, so it is only logical that you keep track of this.
The simplest way to do this is to keep the monthly tax returns. These show how much R&D tax credit has been applied, and that is what matters.
In itself, it shouldn't take much effort to keep track in an Excel spreadsheet or something similar of when the award was received and which part of the awarded amount was included in which tax return. Your payroll administrator might already have one; otherwise, create one yourself—or ask us for help!
The WBSO results in a reduction (reduction in contribution) on payroll tax. Or rather: on wage tax, because in addition to payroll tax, the reduction is also applied to national insurance contributions. In a tax return program, this happens automatically.
You may only apply the withholding tax reduction once the application has been granted and you have received an R&D declaration. The basic rule is that you may grant the withholding tax reduction starting from the reporting period in which you received the decision. You may, however, apply as much withholding tax reduction as you wish for each period, but never more than the amount of payroll tax you owe for that period.
If you have not been able to utilize all of the contribution reduction by the end of the year, you may still offset the remaining amount using a correction message against one of the reporting periods within the application period that has not yet been (fully) utilized, or otherwise against another reporting period in that calendar year. You can, of course, also ask your payroll administrator or Vectrix advisor how this works out in your case.
In the first quarter following the year in which you received WBSO funding, you must report the actual number of hours worked on the WBSO projects. The application states the estimate; now it is about the result. Vectrix is happy to assist you with submitting this report; we also have the necessary eHerkenning tools at our disposal.
If you have realized at least the requested number of hours, that is the end of it. RVO.nl then determines that the awarded amount was correct. You will not receive a supplement if you have realized more hours. However, it is advisable to report exactly how many hours you have booked under the WBSO, even if this is more than the awarded amount. This is because if hours are rejected during a potential audit, they will be deducted from the reported number, creating a 'buffer' for you.
If you have realized fewer hours, you will receive a correction R&D statement. This states the amount you must deduct from the grant to arrive at the final WBSO amount. If you have deducted more than that amount, you will have to repay the excess amount. If you have applied less, you may be able to reclaim some tax via a correction notice.
For the applications for the following year, you must provide the BSNs of the people who completed the WBSO hours in the previous year. Since you are already working on the timekeeping, it is convenient to collect and submit all those BSNs right away. We are happy to take care of that for you as well.