HMRC’s promise for R&D and RDEC claims

With the growing popularity of the R&D tax credit and R&D Expenditure Credit (“RDEC”) tax relief schemes and the recent loss of staff, there have been significant delays in the processing of claims by HMRC.

Aware of the issue, HMRC have recently announced their aim to be up to date with claims by 30 September 2019.

This should mean a return to a 28-day processing time, at least for the R&D tax credit scheme.

While this may seem to be ambitious, HMRC have laid out the following steps to increase the efficiency of claim processing and meet their deadline:

• Increasing the number of staff processing the claims for both R&D and RDEC
• Moving some claims processing to the customer service teams which should assist with seasonal fluctuations in volumes
• RDEC and R&D claims will no longer be differentiated, so that processing times should be the same for both schemes.

HMRC also provide weekly updates on their processing times, including which claims are being processed by date of submission. You can find this information on our R&D page of the James Cowper Kreston website.

For more information on R&D tax credit and RDEC claims please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our tax advisors.