NSRO

The HMRS’s R&D team is not accountable to us but is accountable to their seniors. So, if in doubt or they do not fully understand, or do not have the in-house resources to make the assessment regarding the advancements in technology the firms are involved in, it is safer for them to do nothing. In my emails, I have tried pleading, reasoning, and threatening, and nothing works. They will not get into trouble if they do not make a decision. They will get into trouble if their decision is looked at by a supervisor and overturned. So, if in doubt, I think it is safer for them to do nothing. Like us, if you are on the edge of technology and using it in unique ways, the process is going to be complex and unique. Finding an expert in that unique field that can understand what you do can be a challenge. It's not like we are doing something simple like window cleaning. Our claim is so delayed, I have to decide if I should apply for the next year now. I might, just to annoy them. I have learned the hard way and have cut my firm in half to survive for now. I know no one asked for it, but my experience says to cut back as soon as possible and always assume that the R&D claim is not going to be successful. If it is, good, take the family for a holiday.

We know we went through a two-week investigation. This was many weeks ago. We and our accountants have made more than a dozen attempts over the past few months to contact the R&D team. We have had no reply, just a wall of silence. I appreciate the team must be busy and working hard to clear the backlog. But a message giving us a timeline would be greatly appreciated. A resolution would be more ideal, even if they decide to reject our application, we can at the very least decide to curtail or move off-shore with our project. Is there a way to contact them other than the email provided, as it has yielded us nothing over the past 230+ days, significantly over their self-imposed 40-day target. Any advice apart from please drop them an email or sit tight and pray would be greately appreciated.

@ DJ Hamblin-Brown I am sure the complaint form is not going to be straightforward. Please make sure you follow the steps very carefully, otherwise it might get rejected. However, I am a little jealous that you are getting some response from the HMRS team. I, along with many others are facing a wall of silence and are kept completely in the dark as to the progress (or lack of) of our application.

We are in roughly the same boat. It has only been four and a half months for us but we are barely scraping through. We have used two of our lifelines of beg and borrow, only steal is left. Unfortunately, I do not have the aptitude for the last lifeline. With our more refined products & services, we have had interest from clients that would divert interest away from European and American providers and bring them to the UK. That is if we survive another month or two. It's so sad that years of hard work and investments will go to waste because of a backlog in R&D processing.

Is there a number or email address that I could use to contact someone? I have tried calling but an automated message told me to contact the team only by email for our R&D related queries. I have tried to contact HMRS by email and I get an automated response that someone will aim to respond to your email within 5 working days. No one responds. I do not want to flood HMRC's inbox to make matters worse and am sure others will be in the same situation as me. I am at a loss and would greatly appreciate any assistance on this matter.

We applied for an R&D claim on 13th February 2024 – . We have held off but are now in dire need of the application to go through by the end of this month. We are very small, but are aiming to become direct competitors with some of the European and North American Investment Banks. Only a handful of companies have the know-how and expertise of the techniques we use. None that I can tell have the infrastructure to model or incorporate artificial intelligence into the process. We have built the infrastructure and are looking to incorporate AI. We are at the early stages but have already sparked interest and could divert interest away from European and North American financial instructions to our UK-based products. I appreciate the HMRC team is under tremendous pressure to handle the number of claims however for us the risk of failure has increased dramatically without the support of our R&D claim. We have sent several emails requesting updates but have had the standard automated response for rd.incentivesreliefs@hmrc.gov.uk. I would greatly appreciate any assistance on this matter.

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