Tayside and Fife accountants EQ have hit the £10 million mark when it comes to unclaimed Research and Development tax savings for clients.
The enhanced tax relief potentially applies to anyone developing or creating new products, innovations or processes.
However, they remain largely unclaimed, especially within small and medium sized enterprises.
The amount of claimants of R&D tax credits has rocketed in recent years but HMRC estimate that there remain many thousands of eligible businesses who still do not make a claim.
Head of R&D taxation services at EQ, David Morrison said: “Despite much more awareness of R&D, some businesses remain nervous of claiming believing that HMRC might view this as aggressive tax planning.
“This is not the case, R&D is a claim to which eligible businesses are entitled and not tax planning with HMRC being supportive to properly considered claims.
“Furthermore, there remains a perception that R&D tax credits only apply to “men in white coats” but there are so many sectors where R&D claims are possible.
“In recent years EQ has made claims across many sectors including design, agriculture, food & drink, engineering, software and even dental implants.
“Businesses need to innovate to stay ahead and as long as you are a company seeking technological advances, you have a good chance to qualify.”
Repayments
EQ, which has 100 staff and 15 partners across offices in Dundee, Forfar, Cupar and Glenrothes, has been promoting R&D claims for six years and recently passed cumulative tax repayments to clients of in excess of £10m.
A team of six handle claims for EQ. They do about 50 to 60 claims per year.
Mr Morrison added: “I’m proud to have led a fantastic team which has delivered this level of benefit to our clients. These valuable tax savings have allowed our clients to invest that money into staff recruitment, infrastructure and has allowed a series of local businesses to enhance and expand their business.”
EQ have delivered successful R&D claims for Dundee-based SP Technology Limited is an example of a company to have had R&D claims successfully delivered by EQ.
The company has been designing, building and installing production and process automation systems for more than 30 years.
Over that period the company has secured huge tax repayments, reflective of the highly innovative work they provide.
For example, the company produced a solution to extract blood spots from salmon by using a laser dart to identify and suck out the blood leaving the salmon flesh unblemished.
This had previously been an imprecise, manual process.
Managing director Roy Henderson said: “The EQ R&D team’s expertise has delivered sizeable tax repayments over many years which has allowed the company to invest further in our workforce and its expertise thereby greatly contributing to the success of the business.”
