R&D tax credit criteria set to be subject to greater scrutiny

26 Jul 2022

Draft legislation published recently by HMRC outlines a number of changes to the administrative steps associated with claiming Research and Development (R&D) tax credits.

According to the government, the changes will affect companies that claim R&D tax relief under the Research and Development Expenditure Credit (RDEC) scheme or the small or medium-sized enterprises (SME) R&D relief.

The reform will extend the scope of qualifying expenditures to include the costs of datasets and cloud computing. It will also refocus the reliefs towards innovation in the UK.

The legislation focuses the reliefs more effectively on UK expenditure in order to ensure that more of the spillover benefits produced by R&D activity will arise in and benefit the UK.

It also outlines requirements for claimants to submit a pre-notification of their claim if they are new claimants or if they have not claimed in the previous three accounting periods, and highlights the need to provide additional information to support claims.

More information can be found here.