I recently presented at a seminar that we hosted at the Advanced Manufacturing Park, Sheffield, outlining what support is available for innovative businesses. We covered a wide range of topics including:
- How R&D and patent box tax reliefs help innovative businesses to get cash support from HMRC.
- Several reasons why obtaining intellectual property rights on products and processes can help a business prosper.
- The availability of grants for innovative businesses.
- Other support from the Sheffield City Region, Universities and other local business bodies.
It was interesting to hear the views afterwards of the delegates who attended regarding what they found useful about the presentation. Their comments were not uncommon and illustrate the fact that busy business owners are often unaware of valuable support that is available to them through the tax system and other sources. A summary of their comments is as follows:
- They overestimated the amount of innovation required to be eligible for R&D tax reliefs.
- They weren’t aware that extra tax relief is available on capital expenditure incurred for R&D purposes.
- They had never heard of Patent Box tax relief.
- They weren’t aware that if HMRC receive a proper report explaining why the company is eligible for R&D tax reliefs it reduces significantly the chances of an enquiry from HMRC.
- They didn’t appreciate that you can receive grant funding and still claim R&D tax relief through the RDEC scheme.
- They had not really explored the availability of grants for innovative activities.
It is not surprising that there is this lack of awareness because these people have businesses to run and can’t spend all day wondering what tax and other advice they might need!
However, I really would encourage anyone involved in the management of any business that does anything vaguely innovative to take just an hour of their time to talk to Shorts’ Innovation Taxes Group about the support that might be available to them which can easily be worth tens of thousands of pounds per annum to them.
We have met with many people who lacked awareness of the assistance mentioned above who are now better off because of the help that we have been able to give them.
If you would like more details on how innovative businesses might benefit, then please do not hesitate to Contact us
Scott Burkinshaw
Scott is Tax Partner at Shorts, specialising in providing strategic corporate and personal tax advice.
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