R&D claims and COVID Statutory Sick Pay rebate scheme

The Government is relaunching the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Statutory Sick Pay rebate Scheme in mid-January 2022, which allows a company to claim back Statutory Sick Pay relating to Coronavirus.

How does the scheme work?

More information on how to make a claim will be published soon on government website and, like the previous scheme, it is expected that employers will be able to claim a maximum of 2 weeks SSP for each relevant employee.

What does this mean for R&D claims?

Whilst this might be good news for employers, any SMEs that make or intend to make R&D tax relief claims need to be aware of claiming this for staff who are involved in R&D.

This is because the scheme is a Notified State Aid, which means it does prevent any claims for SME R&D tax relief in respect of projects which have received support through the scheme.

If you are an SME claiming R&D tax reliefs, our advice is that it’s most likely not worth claiming through the SSP rebate scheme for any employees involved in R&D, as it would mean you may no longer be able to claim under the SME scheme.

Seek advice if you are unsure

In some circumstances it might be possible to make a claim under the less generous RDEC scheme, but if you are unsure whether to claim SSP back under the rebate scheme, then please contact the Radius team and we would be happy to advise you further.