Are you required to submit a Claim Notification to HMRC when filing an R&D tax relief claim?

From 1 April 2023, a range of new reforms to the R&D tax credit scheme were introduced, including several measures to prevent abuse of the scheme. One of these is the requirement to submit a Claim Notification to ensure your R&D tax credit claim is valid. 

Not everyone is required to submit a notification. HMRC has proposed that it should be mandatory for:

• Companies planning to submit R&D tax claims for the first time.
• Companies that have not submitted a claim for 3 years or more.

However, there are important details to consider:

• If your company has claimed in the last three years through an original Corporation Tax return, you are exempt from submitting a Claim Notification.
• If your last claim(s) was submitted via an amended Corporation Tax return within the 3-year window, you will still need to submit a Claim Notification form to HMRC, unless the amendment was made before 1 April 2023.

To ensure you do not miss your chance to claim R&D tax relief, we’ve put together some key questions to help you prepare.

To determine if you qualify for the three-year exemption:

1. Calculate the last day of your claim notification period, which is six months after the end of your accounting period.
2. Count back three years from this date.

If you submitted an R&D claim within this three-year window through an original Corporation Tax return, you should not need to submit a Claim Notification. However, if your last claim(s) was submitted via an amended Corporation Tax return during this period, you will still need to submit a Claim Notification form, unless the amendment was made before 1 April 2023.

If it is your first time claiming R&D tax relief and your accounting period starts on or after 1 April 2023, then you will need to submit a Claim Notification.

Additionally, if your company has not made an R&D tax relief claim in any of the previous 3 calendar years, and your accounting period starts on or after 1 April 2023, then you will also need to submit a Claim Notification.

However, as mentioned, there are exceptions:

• If your company has submitted a claim in the last three years through an original Corporation Tax return, you do not need to submit a Claim Notification.
• If your last claim(s) was submitted via an amended Corporation Tax return within the 3-year window, you will still need to submit a Claim Notification form—unless the amendment was made before 1 April 2023.

For accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2023, companies must submit a Claim Notification form for their R&D claim to be valid.

To submit a Claim Notification form, the earliest date you can begin is on the first day of your accounting period.

The latest deadline for this submission comes 6 months after the end of that same accounting period.

Note that if a company makes its R&D claim before the deadline for submitting a notification, they do not have to also submit a Claim Notification form.

For your Claim Notification to be valid, you must provide:

• The company’s Unique Tax Reference (UTR) number must be correct and correlate with that on your CT600.
• Contact details of the main internal R&D contact at the company – this is the person from the business responsible for the claim.
• Contact details of any agent involved in the R&D claim.
• The agent reference number (if you have one).
• The period of accounting start and ends dates, which must correlate with your tax computations.
• Start and end dates of the accounting period you’re claiming R&D for only – again; this must be correct and align with that on the CT600
• A high-level summary of planned R&D projects.

We’re here to help. Over 1000 UK companies have trusted EmpowerRD’s R&D platform and specialists to help them build optimised, compliant R&D tax claims.

Book a call with one of our team to see how we can help you.