February 24 2020
Small and Medium Enterprises can claim R&D tax benefits that will help them to save 26p per pound to 33 p per pound. This is much too attractive to pass up. You may engage R&D tax credit specialists to help you to get the maximum credit or get cash refund but, in general, if you want to do it with the help of your accountants, this is how you can do it.
Determine eligibility
In order to claim R&D tax benefits you should be a limited company in the UK and should be paying corporation tax. You should be able to prove beyond doubt that you have engaged in or propose to engage in R&D activities that will advance technology specifically relating to your business and in general areas. Your R&D tax credit specialist will help you to determine if you meet HMRC eligibility criteria or not.
Prepare a report
Once you are satisfied your company is eligible then your next step towards claiming tax benefit is to document whatever activity you have carried out during the past two years that match eligibility criteria and qualify for the R&D tax scheme. Get an R&D specialist to draw up the document.
Quantify and quality costs
Expenditure that qualifies for consideration:
It is important to not include expenditure that is not admissible, an area where your R&D specialist can provide useful guidance.
Fill up and file the R&D Tax claim form
The R&D tax claim form must be submitted to the HMRC for evaluation. Prior to submission it is worth the effort to have it evaluated by an R&D tax specialist who is likely to discover errors of commission and omission and thus help prevent lengthy delays. If a business is classified as an SME then it can claim SME R&D tax credit. If it is a larger business then it must file a claim under the Research and Development Expenditure Credit.
If the form is in order then you can expect HMRC to process the tax credit claim within 28 days but this depends on their workload. You should allow a maximum of 10 weeks. If a query is raised then the matter is delayed.
It should be kept in mind that the tax credit claim time limitation is two years from the end of the accounting period. This applies to regular working SMEs but for startups the date of incorporation is the registration date and the accounting period starts from the end of that month. However, startups may extend the financial period to 18 months to stay in line with the popular 31st March ending accounting period.
Your Contact to R&D tax credit specialist is the best person to help you get it right the first time.