RDTI assessors are normal people. They have families, kids, hobbies — just like you.

An assessor might drop the kids off in the morning, get to work, have a quick chat with the team, feel good and ready — or not. They log in and open the next application in their queue.

Every sentence in your application has to be read, interpreted and mentally reconstructed by another person. That person is trying to understand your R&D accurately enough to assess it against the legal criteria. The easier you make that process, the smoother the assessment usually becomes.

The RDTI regime in New Zealand is entitlement-based, rules-based and self-assessment-based. It is more like claiming your office costs for tax purposes than trying to pitch to an investor.

Your business entity, R&D activities, and expenditure must all meet the legal rules. If they do, you were always entitled to the 15% tax credit. An approved General Approval application (GA) gives you upfront clarity and security before you take your tax position in the annual claim.

RDTI assessors reviewing General Approval applications are not lawyers or accountants. They are not your customers or investors.

Most have spent years active in research and development — as scientists, engineers and technologists. They worked in start-ups, large research organisations and some have run their own businesses. They understand algorithms, mathematical modelling, technological risk, experimental design, prototype iteration, and engineering trade-offs. They love science, engineering, new product development and R&D and they bring deep domain knowledge and extensive practical experience to every assessment.

They only know about your R&D activities what you tell them in the application.

The General Approval form questions focus on a narrow but critical slice of your R&D story: the uncertainty, what you tried, and what you learned from it. That’s why clear, specific detail from the people who actually did or planned the work is so important.

Assessors are genuinely interested, and they literally cannot assess it properly without that information. Of course it’s good to explain things simply, but leaving out the specifics weakens your application. What feels ridiculously specific to you — one method, algorithm, test or material — is often exactly what the assessor finds most helpful.

Don't get me wrong, assessors are professionals who will recommend approval if all the legal requirements are met, irrespective of whether your R&D is “rocket science”, whether they personally disagree with parts of it, or would have done things differently. They remain professional and friendly no matter what.

But when the work and its description are both genuine and clearly written, they read it differently. They feel — in a real way — that they are helping worthwhile R&D happen in New Zealand. Clear, authentic applications make it much easier for assessors to engage confidently with the work.

Clarity and real evidence beat polish, AI-generated text, and marketing speak every single time. Assessors develop a fine sense for writing that comes from the scientists and engineers who are involved in R&D activities — versus writing from someone with a more superficial understanding of the described activities. When writing feels exaggerated, constructed, or padded momentum drops. Language like “We leverage AI to optimise performance” is far less helpful than “We tested three different approaches to reduce false positives under sparse training conditions and discovered…“. In the worst case, they may have to work much harder just to understand what was really done.

The outcome may or may not be the same in the end, but in one case you likely go through a faster and hassle-free process.

Assessors, like other professionals, mirror your energy naturally and unconsciously. When you are proactive throughout the process — especially when responding to RFIs — they tend to do the same. It’s just basic professional interaction. Staying on top of your application process, being responsive, and asking questions when you are not sure what is required of you can save weeks if not more in overall processing time.

That said, it can also be time-consuming or difficult when it’s your first time or for a complex set of applications and claims that can require coordination between multiple stakeholders.

The biggest bottlenecks can be self-inflicted. The RDTI is deliberately designed for year-round filing.

If you already have a solid R&D plan with clear uncertainty, a testable idea and a plan to address it — apply right away. You will very likely be processed faster. Instead of being one of dozens in the assessor’s queue, you become one of very few.

Retrospective applications are different — you may need to file those towards the end of the tax year. But for new or ongoing work, filing when ready removes a lot of unnecessary stress for everyone.

Note: General Approval still has a firm cut-off date (e.g. 30 June for March balance dates). Filing planned or ongoing work early — once your uncertainty and plan are clear — gets you processed faster.

If you are worried about over-claiming, the best protection is upfront clarity in application structure and content.

Assessors can spot core versus supporting activities a long way off — but when your application draws the boundaries cleanly, they can quickly approve what qualifies and cleanly exclude what doesn't.

If you want a check of your already written application before you file it, why not give the Customer Engagement Specialist (CES) team at MBIE a go? They will give you general guidance and review your application for free before you file it.

A number of R&D businesses write great, clear applications — yet still leave real money on the table.

The Customer Engagement Specialists (CES) team and the RDTI technical assessors are genuinely helpful. They do a great job providing general guidance on the scheme, the process, and how the eligibility rules work. However, they have limited capacity and are not permitted to provide personalised advice or help you maximise your eligible claim.

The official guidance document (IR1240) is detailed with examples, but is a long technical read. The digital sector guidance is easier to digest — even though it is focused on the digital sector, most principles apply across sectors.

While over-claiming can be addressed by reviewing the claimed activities and expenditure against the evidence of what was done and the law, under-claiming can be more involved. Maximising your RDTI claim requires spending focused time working through your past or planned projects in detail with a deep understanding of both the R&D in your specific field — including the expenditures — and how the RDTI rules are actually assessed in practice. This kind of review can reveal opportunities that weren’t obvious at first.

Requests for Further Information (RFIs) can cost a lot of time on both sides and are better avoided when possible. But sometimes they cannot be avoided, and talking to the assessor helps clarify what you can and cannot claim.

The assessors take a generally educational and helpful approach to RFIs. Sometimes they only need to clarify a small question. Sometimes they don’t understand what someone wrote at all or how this is relevant to the legal requirements. But most often it is somewhere in the middle — just wanting to clarify that they understand your R&D enough and that you understand the rules enough. That’s it. They may point out things that currently don't work in your application but more likely they ask helpful questions to clarify and often strengthen your application.