If your business is contributing towards innovation in the UK, special tax breaks are available to reduce the amount of Corporation Tax you have to pay, or even result in a cash tax refund. Research and Development and Patent Box relief are often interlinked, and our specialist team will help you navigate the complexities of the relevant tax laws to maximise the amount you can claim.
We have hands-on, practical experience in many sectors including science and technology, food and drink, manufacturing and financial services – very few of our claims involve people in white lab coats. Even projects that do not meet their business goals can be eligible for relief. Whether you need help checking your own work or want us to build a claim from the ground up, we will help you get it done quickly and effectively.
With a background not only in accountancy and tax but also science and computing, and with specialist report writing skills, our people enable SMEs and large businesses to take advantage of the generous incentives encouraged by the Government, while allowing you to get on with what you do best. The rules have changed in recent years and are set to keep evolving, but we will stay on top of the detailed new requirements for you.
Considering the potential for R&D relief early can put you in a stronger position when it comes to submitting claims down the line. We regularly help companies about to embark on R&D projects. By helping you identify the potential upfront, and develop reporting and accounting systems to capture the nature of R&D activities and the associated expenditure, we will enable you to simplify and accelerate the claims process in the future.
We will help advise you on current, future and past claims. There are fixed deadlines for how far back you can look, so the sooner you get in touch, the more tax we can help you save.
Research and Development
Patent Box
Creative Sector
Research and Development
There are two different R&D tax schemes open to Small and Medium-sized Entities and large companies.
For Small and Medium-sized Entities, the SME scheme provides that for every £100 of eligible R&D costs, profitable SMEs can claim up to £43.70 of relief through a reduction in their Corporation Tax bill, compared to the standard £19 of Corporation Tax relief. Loss making entities can surrender their R&D associated losses to claim a repayable credit up to £33.35.
Large companies (or SMEs who may not qualify for the above scheme) can claim a 13% taxable credit worth up to 10.53% of qualifying expenditure, in addition to the standard tax relief, under the R&D Expenditure Credit (RDEC) scheme.
We will help you identify the scheme in which your R&D expenditure falls, and can also file the claims themselves for any open periods.
Patent Box
Where R&D has occurred, clients will often seek to patent-derived their invention to protect it from commercial exploitation by third parties. However, did you know that companies earning profits from goods or services that have been patented in the UK, EU or EEA can reduce their effective rate of tax from 19% to as low as 10% on relevant patent derived profits?
The Patent Box regime provides an additional incentive to patent your ideas, and applying for a patent with an experienced patent lawyer is a straightforward and low-cost process. If your patent is granted, you can claim relief for qualifying income that arose during the patent pending timeframe. We can recommend patent lawyers to help you through this process and potentially identify other patent opportunities for your business.
A successful Patent Box claim requires significant levels of detail, but we will help you simplify this complex process. As with R&D, we add significant value by providing support and advice prior to making the claim. We recommend changes to your accounting and data collection process to give clear and understandable outputs in real time to support your Patent Box claim. This may include not only data collection, but also Transfer Pricing policies where they are relevant to the regime.
Creative Sector
Our team also has experience in respect of other HMRC schemes for creative businesses which follow similar principles to the R&D tax regime, but directly target specific sectors to provide a cash refund of 20% on qualifying expenditure.
The creative sector tax credit schemes cover a range of activities, such as film, TV and video games production, and reliefs for theatres, museums and orchestras. We will help your business benefit from these incentives.
