Accountants helping firms claim tax relief
WIGAN-BASED BELMONT PACKAGING WAS ABLE TO CLAIM BACK £20,000 OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT MONEY
MANCHESTER business advisors, Champion Accountants, has reached a significant milestone after helping its clients claim £15m in research and development (R&D) tax relief.
This figure represents a 100 per cent success rate, with Champion Accountants successful on every R&D claim that it’s made so far on behalf of clients.
The money claimed as part of the government’s R&D tax credit scheme is helping businesses to grow and innovate further by delivering huge tax savings and potential cashback from HMRC.
One local business benefiting from Champion’s R&D services is Belmont Packaging.
The manufacturer develops printed, flexographic and corrugated cardboard packaging from its manufacturing facility in Wigan, for clients including Hallmark, Soft & Gentle and New Covent Garden Soup Co.
Investing in projects to develop and boost cardboard strength, as well as effective planning and strategy implementation to become the UK’s first ‘greenfocused’ independent packager, saw the company spend £80,000 on R&D activities, with Champion securing a refund of more than £20,000 for Belmont Packaging.
Owner Kate Hulley said: “You wouldn’t necessarily link cardboard boxes and R&D, yet so much of what we do is bespoke development for our clients.
“Champion was brilliant throughout the entire process and able to extract all the information from me and ensure our claim included every possible investment, even down to the energyefficient lighting that we use! “We’ll always need R&D within our business and the money we’ve saved will help with cash flow and fund future investment.” Despite the growing demand for R&D services, many potential claimants, particularly SMEs, are losing out by overlooking R&D. Recent figures from HMRC shows that only 17,135 SMEs claimed R&D relief in 2016 – a minute number when the UK is home to 5.4 million SMEs. David Herd, R&D tax advisor at Champion, said: “We’ve been advising businesses for a number of years and understand the intricacies of R&D, meaning that we can often decide in less than 15 minutes whether a claim is worth progressing.”