Accountants Role in the Submission of an R&D Claim

The process of submitting an R&D claim

If being made, R&D tax relief claims must be submitted in two stages:

  1. The preparation and submission to HMRC of an Additional Information form
  2. Including the relevant figures in the company’s tax return (CT600) and potentially, if necessary, the CT600L

We must work with the company’s accountants to ensure that the right information is submitted at the right time to HMRC. To do this it is helpful if we have the draft tax computations and CT600 before R&D tax relief has been included, as well as the final accounts as soon as possible once they have been completed.

Notification period

An important change that you need to be aware of is that for claims with an accounting period starting on or after 1 April 2024, it will be necessary to submit a formal notification to HMRC that a company intends to make an R&D claim. This is done online. If this has not been completed within 6 months of the period end date a customer will be unable to submit a R&D tax relief claim. (Once a notification has been submitted there is no requirement to make a claim.) But if the notification hasn’t been submitted within 6 months then you will be unable to make a claim.

Our standard working practice will be to submit notifications for new potential claims. However, there are complicated rules about when notification may not be necessary for existing claimants of R&D tax relief. Because of these rules, it is vital that we know the exact date that the final tax computations were submitted.

Documents we ask for

There are several documents that we will always need to write a claim. Sometimes these are provided by the customer and sometimes we will need you, the accountant, to provide them:

  • Employer payroll PAYE reference (format: 999/99999)
  • Payroll information per person, per accounting period:
    • Gross taxable salary
    • Employer NIC
    • Employer pension contributions
    • Any cash benefits
  • Confirmation of if Employers NIC Allowance (currently £5000) has been claimed for the period
  • Final tax computations for the previous period
  • Draft / Final Accounts – if draft, at least to the point R&D related costs are stable
  • Draft tax computations – excluding R&D (for both the claim period and the prior period)