The government is giving more of a boost than ever before to the UK’s most innovative companies, according to the latest full-year statistics from HMRC.
Figures released yesterday showed:
- More than 43,000 businesses claimed tax credits for research and development in 2015-16, up 22% on the previous year.
- The total amount of R&D support claimed increased by 25% to £3.7bn.
- 75% of claims are under £50,000
- The average claim to date is £53,000
Whilst statistics for the 2016-17 tax year are not yet finalised, the numbers so far indicate a continued upward trend in the number of claims from innovative businesses. There has been a significant increase 16% of companies making a claim for the first time in 2016 and that trend will undoubtedly continue.
But it’s still true that too many businesses are not aware of the tax relief scheme or have seriously under-claimed.
Figures are also released today for Patent Box – a scheme enabling companies to apply a lower rate of corporation tax to profits from their patented inventions and intellectual property. They show a 16% increase in companies claiming for the first time, but an 11.6% drop in the total number of claims.
Worryingly, the Patent Box statistics stated that SMEs only benefited by £42m, a relatively small proportion of the total claimed (£945m), with 96% of total relief claimed going to large companies.
At GovGrant we believe that there needs to be greater support to the SMEs, we want them to benefit from their inventions and intellectual property. The UK may be good at inventing things but the government could do more to support SMEs and their Intellectual Property.
Find more details of this year’s tax credit statistics here.
