Check whether you have access to the innovation box with the entry tickets your size requires, compute the nexus ratio over your R&D spend, absorb the threshold from the opening balance and see what the 9% rate yields against the regular corporate income tax rate — with the flat-rate method of 25% capped at € 25,000 shown alongside.
Not all innovation profit lands in the innovation box. The nexus ratio sets your own and outsourced R&D against all spend, including R&D performed within the group and acquired intellectual property. A 30% uplift may be applied to the numerator, but it can never push the ratio above one. Companies that source heavily within the group or acquire externally see qualifying profit shrink proportionally — often the largest single effect in the whole calculation.
Then comes the threshold: a negative opening balance must be absorbed before the 9% rate comes into play. What fills the threshold is taxed at the regular rate, what rises above it at 9%. The tool sets those two routes plus the flat-rate method side by side and shows the closing balance you carry into next year. Every report states the rate year used, the tool version and the dataset vintage, so the reconciliation across years stays checkable.