In short, yes. The best thing to do is to figure out how much R&D you are doing, you should then be able to assign a proportion of your light, heat, water and power that was used for your R&D and amend your claim accordingly. 

One of the biggest portions of claims for the Research and Development tax incentive is circled around staff costs. Whether that might be people directly involved within the R&D or others who might be indirectly involved.

No, you do not need to create a new product to qualify for R&D Tax Credits. For example, if you made an advancement to a piece of machinery that meant you could either manufacture something much quicker or with decreased carbon footprint, those are the kind of costs you could claim for. As long as the amendments are bespoke and improve your whole sector, you can claim for costs incurred during your R&D process. 

In 2020, there were only 475 claims processed by HMRC for the Water, Sewerage and Waste sector, but on average you could receive £52,632 for your successful claim based on current statistics. The whole sector claimed £4.4bn last year so you can really tell that it’s worth putting your claim through. 

Where do we start? You can claim for:

• Development of new systems
• New, bespoke equipment development
• Innovating new packaging options
• A portion of your utilities bill
• Subcontractors (up to 65%)
• Reimbursed expenses

Yes! You are able to claim for unsuccessful projects as this falls under the ‘uncertainty’ you faced during the Research and Development you undertook.

Examples of uncertainty for R&D are;

• Attempting to fix an issue with machinery that does not meet your manufacturing requirements however being unable to resolve the issue
• Managing environmental factors, decreasing your carbon footprint during your manufacturing process 
• If a recipe or cleaning product didn’t work as well as you anticipated and didn’t provide you with what you needed