R&D Tax Reliefs: are you benefitting from your company’s development?

Research & development tax reliefs offer an attractive cash benefit to companies and the rate of relief has just gone up.

Qualifying for relief is much broader than people suppose.  If your company has made any changes to products, processes, internally developed software or made efficiency gains in the last few years you could be eligible to claim the relief.

PwC is experienced in reviewing any business whether telecoms, IT, bioscience, business to business or consumer focused.  Allowances can be claimed on capital assets purchased for use within the R&D activity and this includes buildings.

There can be a large and immediate cash benefit of making a claim - in the current economic climate this is ever more relevant. There is a two year time limit to make a claim – any claims not made within this limit will be lost.

SME relief changes - 1 August 2008:

• 150% deduction increases to 175%;
• SME now described as having 500 employees or fewer and either €100m turnover or less or, €86m balance sheet gross assets or less

Large co relief changes - 1 April 2008:

• 125% deduction increases to 130%.

Companies worry the benefit of making a claim will not justify the cost incurred. We can assess the value of making a claim and what the cost:benefit position would be.  A claim would not be pursued where the benefit to the company would not make it worthwhile.

In formulating a claim we would also:

• minimise the time required from your technical staff
• embed a robust and lightweight methodology for future claims
• where appropriate, agree the claim with HMRC prior to submission,  reducing any chance of enquiry and reducing your risk.

Contact details
Email: Gillian Abramson
Tel: +44 (0)113 289 4613