R&D Tax Reliefs
Supporting businesses that are taking commercial risks to advance industry knowledge, products, processes and services.
What Are R&D Tax Reliefs?
£7.5 Billion
R&D relief awarded to UK businesses in 2022-23
R&D tax relief is a UK government incentive aimed at supporting innovation within limited companies.
Qualifying SMEs and large UK businesses could benefit from a gross tax benefit of up to 20% on the RDEC (Research and Development Expenditure Credit) scheme, while R&D-intensive loss-making SMEs could benefit from an enhanced payable credit rate of 14.5% under the new ERIS (Enhanced R&D Intensive Support) scheme.
To qualify for either form of the R&D tax relief, an innovative project must attempt to overcome a scientific or technological uncertainty within a particular field.
How Do R&D Tax Reliefs Work?
To qualify, an R&D project must attempt to overcome “scientific or technological uncertainties”.
Simply put, this is when a business sees a gap within the market and decides to commit financial resources and professional time to a process of investigative testing, all to discover a technical solution that is currently unknown to the industry.
This testing phase is what qualifies; therefore, a project can still qualify for relief whether it succeeds or fails, as long as it extends knowledge within the business’s field.
The R&D Project Must Be Attempting To:
Check Your Eligibility for R&D Tax Reliefs
To qualify for R&D support, the claimant must be an incorporated company — mostly in the fields of manufacturing, engineering, technology/software and sciences — and the project must fulfil the following criteria:
- Attempted to create a new or enhance an existing product, service or process.
- Attempted to advance the overall knowledge in the field the company trades in.
- Involved a problem that a qualified, competent professional in the field could not readily have solved at the outset.
- Committed financial resources to complete an innovation project that involved research, testing and analysis.
Qualifying Research and Development Activities
R&D tax reliefs support innovation projects from the start to the end of the scientific and technological uncertainty. Below is an example of where, in a product’s life-cycle, qualifying R&D activity can occur.
Non-Qualifying
Commercial/Scientific Idea
Market/Feasibility Research
Qualifying R&D
Establishing technological or scientific uncertainty
The process of resolving the technological or scientific uncertainty
Prototyping
Non-Qualifying
Patents or other IP protection sought
Pre-production design
Industrial upscaling
Qualifying R&D
Establishing technological or scientific uncertainty
The process of resolving the technological or scientific uncertainty
Prototyping
5 Qualifying R&D Tax Relief Costs
There are five pillars of qualifying R&D costs you can claim for within the “uncertainty” phase of an innovation project.
Staff & EPW Costs
Under the R&D tax relief incentive, you can claim the following costs for staff or externally paid workers (EPWs) who were directly involved in an R&D project (they had “hands on” input) and some managerial time:
Salaries
Wages
NICs contributions
Pension contributions
Software, Data & Cloud Computing Costs
Software expenditure that was directly involved in the R&D project. You can also claim for a proportion of software that was only partly used in innovation activities.
For financial years beginning on or after 1 April 2023, you will be able to claim for Data & Cloud Computing Costs directly involved with the R&D project that fall into the following categories:
Data storage
Hardware facilities
Operating systems
Software platforms
Purchase costs of data sets
Consumable Costs
Materials and hardware that are directly consumed during the R&D project.
This includes chemicals, ingredients and electrical components.
These materials and their outputs must not be commercially viable.
Utility Costs
Power, water and fuel that are directly used in an R&D project.
Calculating the proportion of utility costs used in an R&D project can be difficult, but the Amplifi team can advise you on the best practices.
Subcontractor Costs & Overseas Restrictions
Whichever party decides to undertake the R&D can claim. 65% of an R&D payment made to an unconnected contractor or up to 100% for a connected contractor is claimable.
Overseas Restrictions – From accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024, all claimants’ (except NI-registered companies claiming ERIS) contracted R&D activities must now be undertaken in the UK, plus the company or staff controller of any R&D-related EPWs is required to apply PAYE and NICs for that worker.
Guide To The R&D Tax Relief Schemes
The RDEC (merged) and Enhanced R&D Intensive Support schemes are available for all R&D expenditure in accounting periods commencing on or after 1 April 2024.
RDEC (Merged) Scheme
RDEC (Research and Development Expenditure Credit) scheme provides an additional tax credit gross benefit of 20%.
The new RDEC or merged scheme replaced the older SME and RDEC schemes, and it applies to R&D expenditure incurred in accounting periods commencing on or after 1 April 2024.
Enhanced R&D Intensive Support (ERIS)
The Enhanced R&D Intensive Support (ERIS) provides an enhanced payable credit rate of 14.5% for eligible R&D-intensive loss-making SMEs that fall into the criteria below:
- Loss-making SMEs who spend 40% or more of their total expenditure on R&D in accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023.
- Loss-making SMEs who spend 30% or more of their total expenditure on R&D in accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024.
R&D Tax Relief Rates Explained
