05 Nov Lexmore Tax Advisory Publish a Guide to Advanced Notification
MIA member, Lexmore Tax Advisory, has shared the following guide.
The R&D deadline that costs you the whole claim
What every UK SME needs to know about the Claim Notification Form
In short: if your company is claiming R&D tax relief for the first time, or has not claimed in the last three years, HMRC needs to hear from you within six months of your year-end. Miss that window and the claim for that year is gone. There is no appeal, no penalty route, no fix.
Why this catches people out
The Claim Notification Form asks for almost nothing. Your UTR, a couple of named contacts, the accounting period, and a summary of the project. It takes minutes. The consequence of not filing it is the entire value of your R&D claim for that year.
That imbalance is what makes it dangerous. It is a small administrative task with no obvious urgency attached to it, sitting a long way ahead of the deadline that people do have in the diary, which is the Company Tax Return. By the time the accounts are being prepared, the notification window has often already closed.
Who needs to file
You need to file a Claim Notification Form if both of these are true:
1. You are claiming R&D relief for an accounting period beginning on or after 1 April 2023, and
2. You have never claimed before, or you have not made a valid claim in the three years ending on the last day of your notification period.
If you have claimed consistently over the last three years, you are generally exempt. There are two important exceptions.
Download the full guide here.