R&D tax Credits
On Friday 27 November, Client Manager Charlie Goss took part in one of Ward Goodman’s regular ‘WG Hub Live’ events, where topical business topics are discussed with a panel of guests.
This time around, the subject was R&D claims and tax credits for SMEs. Alongside Charlie on the panel was Ian Rodd, Managing Director at Ward Goodman, who led the session. He was joined by his colleague Senior Client Service Manager, Jonathan Lakpuri, while there were two team members from Lydbury Consulting on the call too – R&D Tax Specialist Andy Kimber and Founder and Managing Partner Phil Andrews.
The session began with a presentation from Andy Kimber, who explained what R&D tax credits are and who might be eligible for them. He said that R&D tax credits are a direct financial return for ‘some of the innovative investment you have made in your business’. He added that it was a ‘generous scheme’.
He then looked at eligibility and said it could cover a product, process, material or service. Is your business, for instance, solving technical or scientific problems, is it developing something new or improving something which already exists, has there been financial risk from your business and did you do work that was technically tricky?
There was then a general discussion in which Charlie explained that very often Charter Tax will look at a client and suspect that they are doing something which could be described as R&D.
“As a firm, we are tax specialists, not scientists or technology experts, but if we think that one of our clients is doing R&D, we will encourage them to get a detailed report from a specialist on the work they are doing,” she said. “Now, more than ever, cash flow is key and if there’s a way which firms can boost the cash in their business, then it’s certainly worth looking at.”
