The research and development (R&D) tax incentives claims environment continues to evolve following relatively significant changes during 2021 and the first few months of 2022, explains Craig Flynn, VIP R&D consultant at Croner-i
On 22 July 2021, the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) set out its UK innovation strategy with the intention of cementing the UK as a world leader in science, research and innovation, focusing on specific technologies including artificial intelligence, clean technologies, genomics, and robotics.
This UK innovation strategy together with more recent developments in the 2022 Spring Statement indicates the UK government’s continued support of R&D. The Spring Statement and related commentary made reference to a planned increase in overall R&D investment to £20bn per year by 2024 and clarifies measures announced in the 2021 Autumn Budget.
From 1 April 2023 licence payments for datasets and cloud computing costs attributable to computation, data processing and software will be brought within the scope of qualifying expenditure for R&D tax incentives claims.
