R&D figures welcomed by leading accountants

A leading accountancy firm in Birmingham has welcomed the latest figures for Research & Development (R&D) Tax relief that have been released by HMRC.

ChantreyVellacott, which has offices across England, has helped its clients achieve savings totalling £30 million over the last 12 months.

Their success is reflected in the HRMC’s nationwide figures which reveal that SMEs and large companies submitted around 16,000 R&D claims in 2012/13– an increase of 26 per cent compared to 2011/12.

This means businesses claimed a total of £1.4 billion in R&D tax credits – up £150 million over the previous 12 months.
The analysis shows the most claims were from the manufacturing sector (32.2%), professional, scientific and technical (19.1%) businesses and the information and communication industry (25.8%).

This backs up the findings from ChantreyVellacott whose specialists, all of who are sector-specific engineers and scientists, work together with their clients to maximise R&D tax savings.

Steven Levine, who is head of the Innovation & Technology Group at ChantreyVellacott, said the HRMC figures highlighted that more and more companies are now aware of the tax savings which can be made.

“R&D tax credits were introduced to encourage more companies to invest in innovation and these statistics show that this is happening,” he said.

“This is extremely encouraging because innovation is crucial to the economic recovery and the fact businesses across the UK are benefiting from this relief will be reflected in the products and services which are being produced not only for UK customers but across the world.

“These tax credits are not restricted to the sort of industry which businesses used to associate with R&D such as science or aerospace because it can also include other innovations whether for new product development or the development of new internal processes.

“At ChantreyVellacott we have found that our R&D claims are increasing year-on-year and our team supporting our clients to achieve these savings is also expanding.

“Our tax team has supported clients to achieve savings of over £30 million over the last year and has a 100% success rate in the technology and scientific aspects of R&D tax credit claims – both of which are statistics we are proud to have achieved.

“The ChantreyVellacott R&D team comprises engineers, scientists, chartered accountants and tax advisers.  They take part in monthly training sessions to digest regulatory and other changes.  This expertise enables them to gain a full understanding of our clients’ products and services so that we continue to stay ahead of the game.”