Expert advice worth millions

Research and devel­op­ment (R&D) is a cen­tral tenet of gov­ern­ment plans to pro­mote inno­va­tion in British busi­ness­es. Through the tax sys­tem, it pro­vides incen­tives to organ­i­sa­tions that invest in devel­op­ing new prod­ucts and ser­vices.

The gov­ern­ment sets aside around £1.5 bil­lion every year which it dis­trib­utes to busi­ness­es under­tak­ing R&D and meet­ing cer­tain cri­te­ria. Busi­ness­es can claim back up to 33 per cent of their R&D invest­ment from the pub­lic purse, mak­ing this form of invest­ment less risky and, if every­thing goes to plan, much more prof­itable.

But the sys­tem by which tax cred­its are allo­cat­ed is chang­ing all the time. In April, for exam­ple, new rules came into force increas­ing tax relief for small­er busi­ness­es. The tax relief on R&D costs is now 230 per cent, mean­ing that for every £100 of qual­i­fy­ing cost a busi­ness can apply to reduce its cor­po­ra­tion tax bill by an addi­tion­al £130 on top of the £100 expen­di­ture.

In-prof­it busi­ness­es, based on the cur­rent cor­po­ra­tion tax rate of 20 per cent, could receive a tax ben­e­fit of 26p per £1 of expen­di­ture. Mean­while, large com­pa­nies can claim R&D tax relief or R&D expen­di­ture cred­it, the lat­ter equat­ing to 8.8p per £1 spent.

This may sound com­pli­cat­ed, but the terms of qual­i­fy­ing for R&D cred­its are only more so – it’s why a lot of com­pa­nies strug­gle to see the full ben­e­fit.

Alma’s proven track record in the UK has many high­lights, includ­ing near­ly £100-mil­lion-worth of cred­its claimed for clients and a 100 per cent claim suc­cess rate

That’s where Alma Con­sult­ing Group comes in. Alma CG is a glob­al spe­cial­ist in R&D tax relief with offices across Europe and in Cana­da. It helps busi­ness­es find oppor­tu­ni­ties and make claims in full.

It has a high­ly skilled team of tax spe­cial­ists, includ­ing experts from the “big four” accoun­tan­cy firms and HM Rev­enue & Cus­toms’ own R&D tax depart­ment. The busi­ness takes a rela­tion­ship approach, meet­ing clients face-to-face and learn­ing their busi­ness.

The team uses the infor­ma­tion gained to com­pile a com­pre­hen­sive claim report out­lin­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties and explain­ing how to not only com­ply with pro­ce­dures, but to file an opti­mised claim.

Alma’s proven track record in the UK has many high­lights, includ­ing near­ly £100-mil­lion-worth of cred­its claimed for clients to date and a 100 per cent claim suc­cess rate, with 98 per cent of sub­mit­ted claim val­ues being met by HMRC.

This com­bi­na­tion of a hands-on approach and a track record of suc­cess that’s hard to beat, means Alma has a string of hap­py clients, rang­ing from one-man bands to large multi­na­tion­als. One such client is a lead­ing UK build­ing and civ­il engi­neer­ing firm, one of the largest and most expe­ri­enced com­pa­nies in its sec­tor.

R&D forms an impor­tant part of this engi­neer­ing firm’s busi­ness, from the ear­ly ten­der­ing process to the final stages of con­struc­tion, as well as the tech­ni­cal and man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ties that has won them con­tracts work­ing on high-pro­file projects, such as the O2 Are­na, Emi­rates Sta­di­um and the Olympic Sta­di­um.

Alma CG worked with this busi­ness to re-assess its 2012 R&D claim and iden­ti­fy an addi­tion­al £10.5 mil­lion of qual­i­fy­ing R&D expen­di­ture that had been missed by the pre­vi­ous R&D con­sul­tan­cy; while an even greater amount was found by Alma for its 2013 claim. Alma works this way with a host of oth­er clients in a wide range of indus­tries. The engi­neer­ing firm in ques­tion said they were “astound­ed” by the uplift Alma achieved in their 2012 claim.

Per­haps Alma could give you a nice sur­prise too.