The importance of rewarding innovation as a route to heightening the UK’s competitive advantage, especially under
the haze of Brexit, is clearly firmly on the Government’s agenda.
Whilst this relief predominantly increases the tax relief for large companies (approximately 4,000 businesses are expected to immediately benefit), it also impacts SMEs who claim some or all of their expenditure under RDEC, where they are in receipt of R&D Grants or EU State Aid for example (often an area of tax relief that is missed and under-claimed).
This measure is extremely encouraging and is part of wider measures introduced in the budget to provide what the Chancellor stated as being the “largest boost to R&D support for 40 years” – an assuring declaration of intent to continue to support businesses whose endeavors collectively improve the credentials of the UK as a major global hub for R&D.
The R&D tax relief measures available under the scheme for SMEs remains unchanged and thus continues to offer extremely generous cash benefits to businesses of up to 33.35% for every £1 of qualifying expenditure identified.
Unfortunately, it is still believed that many SMEs across the UK are missing out on the benefits afforded by claiming R&D tax relief in the misconception that it is only available for cutting edge, pioneering work. The breadth of industries successfully claiming is immense, ranging from food/drinks manufacturing (e.g. recipe development), to engineering challenging conveyor systems; printer integration techniques to improving the performance of wipe based formulations – and of course, all manor of IT based work from software development to all-encompassing integrated systems based automation of processes, reporting and collaborative working etc.
You don’t need to be running a tech based company in order to benefit from R&D tax relief. You may be surprised how broad the basis of an application can be and it is worth speaking to a specialist about how to prepare and submit detailed information in support of your claim. Why not give us a call and speak to our specialist? Or take a look at further information on our website.
