There has been plenty in the news over the past year in relation to HMRC clamping down on R&D reliefs available for companies and subsequently increasing the number of enquiries which have been launched. In fact, Ellen Milner, CIOT’s Director of Public Policy stated on CIOT’s website back in December 2023:

“R&D tax credits are intended to support the UK’s ‘push for growth’, but frustrating enquiries resulting in the rejection of legitimate claims are undermining this. Businesses are being put off claiming relief to which they are entitled.”

Ellen went on to explain that abuse of R&D relief is a real problem, and that HMRC should be taking action to tackle it. However, this is resulting in a large number of valid claims being rejected or withdrawn due to the ‘volume compliance’ approach being taken.

She went on to say,

“In our view, the balance between tackling the problems of error and fraud and the impact on compliant claimants is currently tilted too far towards the former. Genuine claimants and compliant taxpayers should not suffer because of the bad behaviour of others.”

It can certainly be off putting to clients to go ahead and make an R&D claim under these circumstances, and we understand that with such negativity in the news around this, it may be an area you are tempted to avoid.

However, if you have completed any R&D, don’t let this news put you off of giving us a call! We only complete and submit claims which we consider are valid, and so you are in good hands. We can chat through the process with you, including what happens next if HMRC opens an enquiry. We can provide the guidance you need to establish if the R&D meets the criteria, and if you aren’t sure what the overall financial benefit of a claim would be, we can run some numbers for you to help with this too.