Research & Development Tax Credits – brief opportunity to claim additional relief

02/11/2017

If you have previously claimed research and development (R&D) tax relief, there may be a one-off opportunity to claim additional relief, thanks to a change in HMRC’s view. You must act fast though – revised claims need to be submitted by 31 January 2018.

The opportunity relates to claims made for accounting periods ended between 9 October 2014 and 31 January 2016. During that time, HMRC restrictions prevented claimants from including reimbursed employee expenses relevant to the qualifying R&D activity in their claim.

It is now clear that some reimbursed expenses can form part of the ‘staff costs’ category of qualifying costs for an R&D claim. You can, as always, claim for staff or business costs directly associated with carrying out qualifying R&D activities, and but this now means any costs the business has reimbursed to the employees are included as well.

Even if we did not submit your original claim for you, we can make a revised claim on your behalf. As the deadline for making an amended claim is 31 January 2018, please get in touch as soon as possible if you think you may be able to include some additional costs in your earlier years’ claims.

For help and advice relating to Research & Development tax credits, please contact Victoria Nicoll