The accountancy firm’s analysis of HMRC’s latest annual report found that the monetary value of fraudulent R&D claims in 2021 was £303m, which was up from £271m in the previous year.

Tim Croft, national head of R&D at Azets believes that this figure is down to a group of small ‘rogue’ boutique R&D advisers who have targeted SMEs hit hardest by the pandemic to make claims for R&D tax relief to increase their fees.

Azets states that if SMEs are found to have applied for these loans fraudulently then the businesses will face the repercussions with repayments of rogue claims likely to cost millions of pounds.