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 you embark on a project that truly advances the worlds state of technology where you can really reap the benefits of SRED.
Most startups, as sad as it may be, don't truly advance technology. A lot create value, yes, but advance technology? not really. Certainly not all year. So they'll only get 75% of salaries paid for the hours they worked on advancing technology.
You'll get that back at the end of the year as one lump sum. It's awesome. However, it goes to the company and the company has to have already funded the salaries -- it wont fund salaries, it will reimburse them.
On top of that the system is so hard to navigate that you'll end up requiring a consultant to navigate it. They'll take a cut, between 10-20%, of the return.
It's not as simple as the article states, and our poutine doesn't look like that.