At the recent R&D Communications forum, HMRC announced their intention to form an expert advisory panel for R&D tax relief, with the intention of gathering insights and opinions from industry leaders from a range of sectors.
The panel is expected to be in operation from Autumn 2025 and will advise HMRC on both the cutting edge of science and technology and how guidance and communication related to the R&D tax relief scheme could be improved.
For the past several years, HMRC have made huge efforts to stamp out error and fraud within the R&D tax relief scheme. Alongside this, legislative changes have been introduced to simplify the schemes and make it easier for HMRC to detect error and fraud in future.
However, in doing this HMRC have attracted criticism of their approach, which, whilst effective at reducing error and fraud, has discouraged many claimants and advisors from making legitimate claims.
The formation of this panel will enable HMRC to gain a better understanding of the current state of science and technology in the UK, and how guidance and legislation are interpreted and applied by claimants, hopefully leading to a better, more collaborative approach to R&D tax relief claims.
HMRC will recruit six industry experts to the panel. These experts will currently work at a senior level in one of the following sectors:
HMRC states that knowledge of the R&D tax relief schemes is helpful but not essential and appears to have no plans to recruit accountancy professionals or R&D tax relief experts to the panel.
The panel will act as a ‘critical friend’ to HMRC, advising them on messaging and communication channels as well as giving sector-specific insight into how R&D tax reliefs are utilised, and what developments might give rise to future claims. They’ll also challenge the guidance to ensure clarity, advise on what constitutes a competent professional and discuss any other issues related to R&D tax relief.
In the short term, very little! The outcomes of forming this panel appear to be more medium to long term and should have some impact on future guidance and communications from HMRC.
There’s potential for this to also impact R&D tax relief inspectors, giving them better insights into current technologies and expertise.
However, while we welcome HMRC’s commitment to improving their guidance and communication, we have some concerns about the size and make-up of the panel.
The selected sectors account for approximately 67% of claims for R&D tax relief, although this is likely to be much lower given that the selected sectors are subsets of larger sectors. This could lead to further bias against claims from less technical sectors or for R&D into areas such as construction.
In addition, the small size of the panel again means it is unlikely to represent the full sweep of companies and types of science and technology involved in R&D tax relief claims.
We’d like to see HMRC expanding the panel in future to include representatives from a larger range of sectors, as well as accountants and others able to advise on how the reliefs are applied in practice, and how they interact with other aspects of Corporation Tax.
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