HMRC have provided us with some further information around the pause in some Research & Development Tax Credit (RDTC) payments that occurred in April this year, and the continuing delays in their usual processing times. HMRC have asked to share with you the message below:
As you may be aware, we recently had to pause some R&D payments and extend our standard processing times. We are now in a position to explain why we needed to do this:
- Since April we have faced an increase of fraud within the RDTC relief. While some of this fraud is opportunistic, some is linked to organised criminal gangs. As you would expect, HMRC responded quickly by pausing all payments and by strengthening our systems accordingly.
- While we are pleased that we could restart paying RDTC claims from the 10th May 2022, the nature of the additional operational checks
(required to protect the R&D relief) means that it is not currently
feasible to offer a 28 day payment turnaround for claims and we think the standard service level will need to be 40 days. We are working to recover from the recent pause in payments and expect to be processing 80% of claims within 40 days, by the end of August 2022.
Full article: https://www.tax.org.uk/research-development-tax-credit-rdtc-payments-further-update-on-delays