R&D Tax Relief is a generous incentive for innovative companies, currently worth around 21.5% of qualifying R&D expenditure for SMEs.
Whether your company is big or small, old or new, or makes a profit or loss, you may be able to reduce your corporation tax bill or receive a payable cash credit. R&D Tax Relief is one of the most significant government-backed reliefs available today, but many companies do not realise they qualify.
It’s really important you are aware of these new R&D schemes and depending on what accounting period you have, at which point you need to start making claims under the merged RDEC scheme or if the R&D intensive scheme might apply to you.
For further information about these changes and others, including changes to the rules on contracted R&D and overseas R&D costs, read our full Autum summary statement.
Following the 2023 Autumn Statement, where the UK government announced that a new merged R&D tax relief scheme would replace the existing schemes, the new merged RDEC scheme came into effect on 1st April 2024.
Introducing the merged RDEC scheme brings new measures to understand the tax relief on R&D activities. It’s extremely important to make sure you are aware of the options available to you
SME Scheme
The SME scheme is a valuable resource for smaller companies looking to invest in R&D and can provide generous tax savings for those who are eligible. It is currently worth around 21.5% of qualifying R&D expenditure.
RDEC Scheme
The RDEC scheme allows larger eligible companies to claim a tax credit worth up to 20% of their qualifying R&D expenditure and a net tax saving of 15% (since 1 April 2023).
Patent Box
HMRC’s Patent Box Scheme enables qualifying companies to pay a lower effective Corporation Tax rate of 10% of profits from patented products or processes.
Radius will lead you through this process with clarity, authority, and efficiency, quickly determining your eligibility to claim, and dealing with all relevant calculations.
Support for Accountants
With increasing levels of scrutiny and more compliance checks being exhibited by HMRC into R&D Tax Relief claims, Radius has also seen an increase in requests for consultancy work to provide advice and guidance to accountancy firms who have completed claims for their clients or provided advice.
The Radius team’s new area of support focused primarily on providing qualified, tailored advice and support to accountancy firms conducting R&D Tax Relief claims.
R&D Allowances
Research & Development Allowances (RDAs) are often overlooked, but are an extremely valuable relief. They provide 100% tax relief in the year of acquisition, for capital expenditure incurred for the provision of R&D facilities or expenditure on capital assets used by employees carrying out R&D.
We strongly advise any company engaged in qualifying R&D activities to consider RDAs to ensure they are not missing out on this relief.
NEW Merged Scheme
19 December 2024
Christmas is approaching, and the Shorts tax team is getting into the festive spirit. T’is the season of sharing, and the Shorts Tax team is always eager to help everyone manage their tax position better – whether they are clien
24 October 2024
The government continues to put the UK’s R&D Tax Credit schemes under the microscope. This has led companies being required to provide a greater volume of reporting documentation for claims, with innovative companies facing gre
19 August 2024
The UK Patent Box provides a tax incentive for qualifying businesses, allowing them to benefit from a reduced Corporation Tax rate of 10% on profits earned from their patented products or services.
24 July 2024
The UK Patent Box offers eligible businesses a reduced Corporation Tax effective rate of 10% on profits derived from patented products or services. However, the eligibility criteria sometimes leave claimant companies confused.
In order to claim R&D Tax Relief, your activities must meet HMRC’s definition of R&D – however, this includes more than you may think.
It costs nothing to find out if you qualify, so check your eligibility today, or get in touch if you want to talk to an expert about your R&D activities.
These are just a handful of examples where we have helped companies claim R&D Tax Relief successfully. You can learn more about the wide range of activities, industries, and business types that we have helped in our free Case Study Guide.
Robust R&D Tax Relief claims, prepared and maximised by specialists with minimum disruption to you.
Some firms have tax generalists preparing R&D Tax Relief and Patent Box claims. Our team are full-time specialists.
Our processes and proactive ethos ensure that we systematically consider every possible way in which claims can be maximised within legislative parameters.
This means that we are uniquely equipped to maximise your claims, often using creative solutions in conjunction with our tax and accounting colleagues.
Being part of Shorts enables us to offer broader, more comprehensive services than other R&D tax relief advisers with a narrower focus.
HMRC has started cracking down heavily on historic and current error strewn R&D Tax Relief claims.
Some R&D Tax Relief advisers aren’t suitably qualified to prepare robust claims or they push the boundaries way beyond what is eligible.
Radius claims are prepared by highly qualified and experienced professionals who specialise in R&D and Patent Box Tax Relief claims. We have detailed quality assurance processes to ensure claims are fully optimised and compliant. All claims are reviewed by an ex-HMRC R&D tax inspector before submission.
Radius is a division of Shorts Chartered Accountants, a regulated and award-winning firm of accountants with over 130 years of heritage of doing things properly.
This heritage drives our focus and pride in providing technically excellent claims.
Our carefully structured, process driven approach aims to make preparing your company’s claim as easy as possible for you.
Wherever possible, we’ll interview your team and prepare the claim from their answers – they just need to talk to us. Where we do need financial and other information, we’ll try to ask for it all in one go and keep it to a minimum.
This is all intended to avoid your team having to try to interpret rules and explain why activities qualify.
12 October 2023
24 August 2018
Scott Burkinshaw
Darryl Hoy
Matt Pierce
Zarif Zaman
