How to calculate how much your R&D tax credit claim is worth

In the UK, many businesses are working on researching and developing new technologies, but failing to claim relief. Ensuring you’re aware of the potential returns available in your sector is imperative at a time when the financial implications offer such a cause for concern.

Want to know whether claiming R&D tax credits is worth your time and effort? Here are the five stages that will help you get an idea of how much benefit your business might receive.

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The exact figure you can claim in R&D tax credits will depend on a variety of factors, such as the size of your company, its tax rate and how many of your activities are eligible.

You can however get a rough idea of how much your claim might be worth before you get the process started. Here are a few points to consider:

1 – Decide on which scheme are you eligible for? SME or LC/RDEC?

Make sure you claim under the correct scheme. From 1 April 2015, SMEs can recover up to 26% (if in profit) and 33.35% (if loss-making) of eligible expenditure, while Large Companies can claim back up to 8.9%.

2 – Decide on which expenditure to include in your R&D tax claim

Don’t over claim! Only revenue expenditure (before VAT) on staff (direct and indirect), software, consumables and subcontractors, related to your R&D projects of course, can be claimed as eligible for R&D tax relief.  Anything else will raise a few HMRC eyebrows!

3 – Are you in profit or loss-making?

SMEs can recover up to 25% (if in profit) and 33.35% (if loss-making).

4 – Received grant funding? Careful now!

Grants and subsidies can move a portion (or all!) of an SME’s project from the SME scheme to the Large Company scheme. It is therefore possible – and relatively common – for SMEs to be able to claim under both schemes for one or more projects.

5 – Get your calculator out!

It’s number crunching time…

  1. The first thing is to calculate is the size of the enhanced deduction. (for example, the SME rate is 130%). That’s the additional amount that can be deducted against its profits.
  2. The next thing we do is apply this enhanced deduction to your pre-tax profit, thus reducing the profits that would otherwise be taxed.
  3. Finally calculate how much your R&D tax relief value is worth, by multiplying your enhanced deduction value by the amount of corporation tax you have to pay.

Voila!

6 – Put away the aspirin and talk to Jumpstart!

No wonder companies find applying for R&D tax relief on their own quite so daunting and confusing! Don’t go it alone, Jumpstart can minimise your time and effort, the risk and complexity involved and make sure your claim is accurate and its value maximised.

Jumpstart is a leading R&D tax relief specialist, guiding companies through the complexities of submitting claims to HMRC. 

Jumpstart’s large team of technical analysts have specific scientific and technical backgrounds and years of industrial experience which have resulted in an extremely high success rate in securing R&D tax relief for their clients. Since inception eight years ago, they have realised almost £96 million benefit for their clients. Right now, they’re submitting an average of 500 claims per year to HMRC.

For a free R&D tax credit consultation and analysis of the potential returns you might expect, contact the Jumpstart team on 0131 240 2900 or [email protected]

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