Consultation on R&D tax reliefs draft guidance

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has published draft guidance ahead of the implementation of reforms to the Research and Development (R&D) tax reliefs on 1 April 2023

To ensure the guidance is as helpful as possible, the HMRC is inviting comments from any individuals or organisations who make use of or provide tax agent services for R&D tax reliefs.

The guidance clarifies technical aspects of how the reforms will work in practice and includes a list of the additional information that will be required for claims.

Read the draft guidance on R&D tax reliefs.

Should you want to provide feedback to HMRC on the draft guidance, send your comments by 28 February 2023 to rdtaxreliefdraftguidance2022@hmrc.gov.uk.

R&D tax relief reforms

At Budget 2021, the government announced a review of the R&D tax reliefs aiming to ensure that:

• the UK remained a competitive location for cutting edge research
• the reliefs continued to be fit for purpose
• the taxpayer money was effectively targeted

Several reforms have since been announced, including bringing pure mathematics research within scope of the reliefs, including data and cloud computing as qualifying costs, restricting expenditure on some overseas R&D activities and a package of measures to target abuse and improve compliance.

Draft legislation for these measures was published for comment on 20 July 2022 and final legislation will be taken forward in the Finance Bill next year.

First published 21 December 2022