Over the years we’ve found that when it comes to R&D Tax Relief Claims, many business owners will wait until the VERY latest point possible before they act. It takes the threat and urgency of a hard and fast deadline to really get them moving.
But it’s hardly surprising is it? We’re all human at the end of the day, and R&D is just one of hundreds….even thousands of tasks that a business owner has to think about for their business. But. We all know clients are very quick to grumble when it comes to fees, or if they have not been informed (reminded several times!!) about something they need to do. So, what can you do to manage this risk and make sure clients are educated on the deadlines around R&D?
1. GET FAMILIAR WITH THE DEADLINES
First of all you need to get familiar with the deadlines yourself. The hard and fast deadline for making a claim is, 2 years AFTER the end of the accounting year in which the company incurred the costs. If a client passes this date it’s game over….the money has gone.
However, there is a key exception to be mindful of. If a company has an extended year end, then the filing date is the end of the extended accounting period e.g., Sept 2018 year end extended to March 2019 = 18 months period to March 2019.
There are other ‘potential’ exceptions such as where a client has an HMRC enquiry open, or the tax return was filed late. We say potential because it is totally up to HMRC’s discretion how this is treated so it’s not worth the risk.
This is your LR…Last Resort.
2. OVERCOMMUNICATE The biggest thing you can do to manage the risk of a client missing an R&D Tax Relief deadline and to ensure you have R&D covered for all your clients, is to raise awareness and educate your clients, repeatedly.
You need to overcommunicate.
3. DOWNLOAD NEW TOOLKIT: R&D YEAR END DEADLINE
To make sure you’ve got this covered, we’ve produced a template R&D Year End Deadline toolkit that you can just keep rolling out, any month. The toolkit targets clients based on their year-end, when time is running out and they have no choice BUT TO ACT – we’re talking 4 – 6 weeks max.
For DTX’ers, we’ve produced beautiful visual resources, along with supporting guidance, template emails and other marketing resources to share the information with your clients and prospects.
MANAGE RISK, OVER COMMUNICATE & CREATE OPPORTUNITY
Remember, most accountants do not proactively manage risk, raise awareness, educate clients, and create opportunity on tax advice and consultancy areas.
DTX’ers are not most accountants.
Download the NEW: R&D Year End Toolkit All Downloads are brought to you by the Tax Toolkits and Intaxicate Marketing services within the Diagnostax Ecosystem, all accessible under one subscription. For information please visit our website.