31 December 2018

The latest HMRC R&D Tax Credit statistics have reasserted the value of these vital tax reliefs to companies involved in technical development work.

The latest statistics demonstrate some new trends and, positively, they underline that there is a growing awareness and uptake of the R&D Tax Credit scheme with the number of claims submitted to HMRC in the last year having more than doubled.   At the same time, the average claim value continues to rise.

The key statistics:

• For SMEs, the average claim value for 2016-17 is £53,876
• The number of SMEs making a claim has more than doubled since 2013-14
• 75% of SMEs are making a claim worth less than £50,000
• The average RDEC claim for 2016-17 is worth £272,881
• 5,900 RDEC claims were submitted in 2016-17, representing a 185% increase since the RDEC schemes introduction
• This is supported by the fact that there are now more SMEs claiming via RDEC than there are Large companies

Note: These are provisional HMRC figures.