Research and development tax relief for small to medium sized enterprises

Profitable tax paying SME companies conducting qualifying development work can claim government backed Research and Development tax relief worth over a quarter of their R&D costs. Companies with losses in the year can claim a payable credit from HMRC worth up to a third of their R&D costs.

Recent statistics show that more than 25,000 companies are claiming enhanced tax relief using the R&D tax schemes. This is a very small fraction of the companies registered at Companies House. So why do so few companies take up this generous relief? Is it because R&D tax relief is too difficult to obtain? Maybe R&D is undertaken by only a very small percentage of companies? Or, perhaps a lot of companies are just missing out?