Tax reclaim experts expand to open West Midlands base

A FINANCIAL consultancy which helps companies to reclaim tax credits and refunds from HMRC for their R&D work is expanding into a new region.

Research and Development Specialists (RDS), which is headquartered in Altrincham in Greater Manchester and also has an operation in Nottingham, will launch a new presence in the West Midlands early next year.

It has agreed a deal to open a new office on Birmingham Business Park in Solihull.

RDS said it estimated that 4.3 per cent of UK businesses were registered in the West Midlands and wanted to work with firms that could be eligible to claim tax relief through the HMRC Tax Incentive but were potentially missing out on thousands of pounds.

It added that 8.47 per cent of the total R&D claims in 2020/21 were from the West Midlands which was the country’s fourth largest area. RDS chief executive Mark Joyner said: “For many businesses, the research and development incentive is overly complex to understand and they just don’t have the time to commit to investigating it or even starting their own claim.

“Many also don’t realise the work they’ve undertaken is eligible to claim or they don’t believe their industry fits the bill.

“We want to help demystify the incentive so that every business in Birmingham that is eligible understands what qualifies and realises the potential financial rewards. “Over the past five years, we’ve signed off 1,114 claims - the biggest sum that a company received back through the scheme was over £440,000.

“In that time, we’ve also helped businesses to re-invest over £30 million during some of the toughest financial times we’ve ever seen as a country.”