Autumn Budget 2021 – R&D Tax Relief

28 Oct 2021

There were a few R&D related points announced in the Autumn Budget.  These and our thoughts on them can be found below:

• “To ensure the R&D tax reliefs continue to support cutting edge R&D methods, the government will expand qualifying expenditure to include data and cloud computing costs, reinforcing the UK’s status as a science superpower.”

A sensible move – the world has moved on and that needs to be recognised.

• “To more effectively capture the benefits of the reliefs, including improved skills, know-how and understanding, the government will refocus the reliefs towards innovation in the UK.”

Currently, R&D activities don’t need to take place in the UK as long as a UK company is funding the development. Restricting R&D tax relief to only UK based activity could have quite a significant impact on many companies.

• “The government will also set out plans to tackle abuse of and improve compliance with the R&D tax reliefs later in the autumn.”

By far, the most important of these announcements and we can’t wait to see what these plans are.