Research and Development (R&D) tax credits

Is your firm eligible for R&D tax relief?

R&D tax credits are an incentive provided by the UK government to encourage companies to undertake development activities. The relief is based on the R&D costs that your company incurs and can be used to either reduce the amount of tax that your company pays or to receive a cash payment from HMRC.

Any company in any industry may be eligible for R&D tax credits, however, you must be undertaking development activities that seek to achieve an advance in science or technology, or activities which directly contribute to advances by resolving scientific or technological uncertainty. While this sounds very complicated, please don’t be put off, in reality a huge number of businesses are doing this without realising. The outcome of the project can be tangible, such as new products or processes, or intangible, such as knowledge or cost improvements, even failed projects can qualify.

The following costs may qualify for relief:

How difficult is it to claim?

Many businesses don’t really know what projects and expenditure types are eligible, which means they often miss claimable expenses. We also often see mistakes in claims. The most common mistakes we see are:

• Claims that are missing expenditure that could rightfully be claimed
• Claims that include costs that aren’t qualifying, which could mean risking an HMRC enquiry. 

We know exactly what HMRC requires. By working with HMRC on complex claims and staying up to date with HMRC policy, we understand the information it needs and, more importantly, why. With our support, you can be sure to share exactly the right details to satisfy HMRC’s requirements. To find out how likely your R&D claim is to be queried by HMRC, click here.

How much could you claim?

How we'll support you

We're here to fully support your business with preparing and claiming R&D tax credits.

We take time to listen to your business to understand the goal you’re trying to achieve with your innovation, so we can help you overcome problems and challenges along the way. If we believe that you will be eligible to qualify for R&D tax credits, we will then proactively manage your claim. Our approach will not only minimise the time incurred by you, but also maximises the chances of you obtaining a successful claim in the shortest possible timeframe.

Our flexible approach to fees means we are happy to work on a fixed or contingency basis, which will give you complete transparency as to the cash benefit that the R&D tax credit will have to your business. By working with Buzzacott you'll have the added reassurance that our team has backgrounds in engineering, science and policy and that as a regulated firm, we provide advice you can trust.

Download our R&D tax credit guides

• Are you maximising your R&D tax credit claims?
• How likely is your R&D claim to be queried by HMRC?