Extra credit for R&D
The chancellor announced further increases to Research & Development tax credits, a flagship Gordon Brown scheme
The rate of relief will increase for large and small companies. SMEs will get
a rate of relief of 175%, while large companies will get 130%.
These will be complicated by changes to the headline corporate tax rates for
both small and large companies, but advisers welcomed the moves.
HM Revenue & Customs has been trying to promote the credits amidst fears
that many SMEs were not claiming them due to complexity, having set up
specialist science units to rule on claims and to market the credits too in due
course.
‘The question now is whether they should have specialist units for large
companies as well as SMEs, dealing with all of the claims,’ said David Cobb, an
R&D specialist at Deloitte.