R&D claims

SME claims for R&D relief up by 30%

 

Claims for research and development (R&D) tax relief by SMEs have surged over the past year, up by almost 30% compared to the previous 12 months, the latest HMRC statistics show say Harris & Co accountants Northampton #accountantsnorthampton 

This is no surprise to us as we have seen firms of accountants pushing R&D claims as a tax saving device when really the company does not qualify fro R&D tax credits.

As a reminder, to qualify for R&D tax credits, the company must under take an advance in science or technology.An advance in science or technology means an advance in overall knowledge or capability in a field of science or technology. In other words it has to be new knowledge that did not exist anywhere else in the world.

This is a tough test and a lot of claims we see just do not meet it. For example we recently saw a firm of R&D tax credit "specialists" trying to claim R&D tax credits for a simple web site. This clearly did not meet the advance in science or technology test.