Tax credits are one of the reasons I didn't start my business in Canada. (I'm Canadian and I know the workings of some Canadian tech companies, but my current projects are all in Silicon Valley.)

The way it works is that you get 50% of your R&D expenses back from the gov't, in cash, several months later. To claim it, you have to write reports explaining the R&D value of each project. Besides the obvious bureaucratic overhead, it ends up affecting the organizational structure of the company. It distorts the way the business is run, maybe by only 20%, but that's enough to make you lose in the market in the long run.