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R&D tax relief has been an area of scrutiny for the last few years, understandably putting a lot of clients and advisors off making claims, but in the current economic environment it is more important than ever to help businesses access innovation incentives, in a way that is robust.  Advisers discuss a lot of otherwise-valid claims being increasingly rejected, delayed or scaled back because the narrative, evidence or cost treatment doesn't stand up.  Increasingly, the balance of risk and reward is being challenged, with clients questioning the amount of management time and distraction involved in handling HMRC enquiries, even if the claim ultimately proves to be valid. 

This course shows accountants and tax advisers the most common technical and practical failure points (what triggers queries, what gets removed, what gets classed as 'not R&D'), and gives a repeatable approach to prevent avoidable rejections - improving client outcomes, reducing professional risk and protecting fees by making claims faster pro support and easier to defend. 

In this course Simon Briton covers the following topics:

• Why claims get rejected in practice - the patterns behind “ineligible R&D”, “unsupported costs”, and “weak or inconsistent narratives” - and how these show up in enquiries.
• How to build a robust technical narrative (baseline, uncertainty, advancement, competent professional) that aligns with the numbers.
• Costing pitfalls that invite challenge - staffing, subcontracting/EPWs, consumables, software/cloud/data, apportionments - and how to evidence each category credibly.
• An efficient workflow for scoping, documenting, review, and client sign-off that stands up to scrutiny (without drowning the team in admin).
• Enquiry response strategy, evidence packs, risk-rating claims and resetting client expectations to avoid future disputes.