One of our country’s biggest success stories is our tech sector.
UK tech has been maturing for years, and we have relied on it more than ever in the last 12 months to connect communities, power remote work, move lessons online and enable the healthcare sector to collaborate more deeply than ever, just to name a few examples.
UK tech attracted record investment of almost $8bn in the first three months of 2021 and a new tech firm launched every 30 minutes in 2020.
However, when talking about these big numbers it is often easy to overlook the contribution R&D Tax Credit claims are making.
The most recent statistics from HMRC show that the Professional, Scientific and Technical sector, combined with the Information & Communication sector, claimed over £2bn in relief in 2018-19, and the trend is upwards.
This is guaranteed money, based on qualifying activity, and a vital source of cashflow.
The majority of tech businesses will be undertaking qualifying R&D and, if they survive their first year, will be able to claim R&D Tax Credits – a vital source of cash for a new company in the development stage, with little or no revenue, and worth up to 33% of qualifying expenditure.
As this will be the first time they have claimed, assuming they are aware they can claim, then they will be faced with a number of choices i.e.
- Doing it themselves
- Getting their accountant to do the claim
- Searching the internet – to be faced with a lot of options and prices
- Asking peers for recommendations
These start-ups are very busy people and will probably rule out the first option, but it is worth them doing their homework when considering the other three options.
With the accountant and low cost ‘automated’ solutions that are becoming more available, more often than not the business will be responsible for defining what their ‘qualifying’ R&D activity is – something they are not ‘qualified’ to do. And given HMRC’s statement of intent to crack down on fraud, self-certification should be avoided.
That leaves deciding which specialist to use.
A good check list to work with would cover:
- Industry specialisation – tech focus
- Technical expertise
- Tax expertise
- Comprehensive process – they do the work
- QA systems & processes e.g. ISO9001:2015
- Evidence of training and development – employ the guy who ‘wrote the manual’
- Satisfied clients in relevant tech sectors
- Partnerships with leading organisations e.g. The FD Centre
Not many ‘specialists’ will tick the majority of the above – only one ticks them all – MSC R&D
Don’t leave your claim to chance – contact us on 0114 230 8401
