Getting R&D Tax Credits in Leicester

You know how advantageous R&D Tax Credits can be, with their ability to contribute towards your research and development costs, but how do you actually apply for them?  Unfortunately, being a Government benefit, applying isn’t completely straightforward, and there are many hoops to go through when you start the process, just to determine if you are actually eligible in the first place. 

The research & development (R&D) tax credit system was designed to encourage innovation amongst UK companies and increase spending on R&D activities.  It is similar to schemes run for companies in many other countries to help with the cost of developing new products and services. The benefit is one of the UK Government's top incentives for encouraging investment in research and development and allows up to 33.35% of a company's R&D spend to be recovered as a cash repayment. Statistics show that, in 2019, more than 39,000 UK companies took advantage of the scheme, claiming nearly £3.5bn in tax relief. This is a very popular benefit, but many companies fall foul of the application process when they attempt it themselves.

Claiming R&D Tax Credits looks pretty easy on the face of it, but it can become problematic once you start to examine the application process and the range of acceptable criteria, it becomes a bit more daunting.  The claim process contains only three steps:

• Assess the qualifying R&D activity of your company
• Calculate your qualifying R&D expenditure
• submit the figures to HMRC in the CT600 tax return.

This sounds simple enough, but the actual mechanics of going through the process can be much more difficult. For a start, the credits are subject to certain aspects of the project, such as the company:

• is looking for an advance in science and technology
• has had to overcome uncertainty
• has tried to overcome this uncertainty, and
• has determined the problem could not be easily worked out by a professional in the field.

While those might seem quite easy to determine, the guidelines are actually very stringent, and it would be easy for a company to believe that they comply, only to find that they actually don’t when they start to investigate.   This can lead to instances where companies start to innovate, are sure that they can get the R&D Tax Credits, and then fail to do so because they don’t meet the criteria and have to stop the development phase due to a lack of funding.

That is a situation that you certainly don’t want to find yourself in and you can save a lot of heartache if you employ the services of a professional R&D Tax Credits advisor. These financial specialists spend every day helping companies reap the rewards of these voluble Government benefits and can tell a company almost immediately if their project is likely to be able to attract the credits.  

How can you find these specialist accountants? For a start, you can look locally, and carry out an internet search for R&D tax consultant Leicester, or R&D tax credits Leicester, and see which companies that brings up. Alternatively, search the business pages for R&D Tax Consultant and select one to work with you.  Doing anything different would just be madness.