Two of Magma’s corporate tax team (Jon Kicks and Victoria Tunaley) are this morning speaking at Cranfield Technology Park to an audience of regional businesses. They are sharing their well tuned expertise on the highly topical subject of Research & Development (R&D) tax reliefs.
Over the last three years, almost from one month to the next, we have been making an increased number of successful R&D tax claims for clients. This is partly down to the growth of our client base and the ongoing claims we are consistently making for them, but also due to a surprising number of historic claims which have been missed by clients’ former accountants/advisers. Whilst many smaller firms of accountants simply do not have the relevant “in-house” tax expertise (and their clients will inevitably miss out on knowledge based tax advantages like R&D), we are also achieving sizeable tax repayments for clients (or should we say former clients!) of much bigger firms of accountants (who shall remain nameless, but certainly “Top 10” by size). We put this down to commercial application of knowledge, rather than simply having the knowledge itself, which is where we believe we are different. Perhaps Cranfield felt the same!
We have now made successful R&D claims for clients across most sectors, with expenditure contributing to any advance in overall knowledge or capability (whether successful in outcome or not) well worth considering. Retrospective claims are limited in time to two full financial years (so a claim relating to the year ended 30 September 2014 would need to be made by 30 September 2016). If you would like us to consider how R&D may work for your business, please contact Jon, Victoria or any one of the corporate tax team.