Over the Summer of 2019, HMRC acknowledged that they were falling short of their 28-day turnaround times set for processing R&D claims. The turnaround time target is the same for R&D credits for SME’s and the RDEC claim generally used by larger companies or SME for project which have also received other state funding, such as grants.
Since 1 October 2019, HMRC have allocated additional staff to the processing of R&D claims by moving to a larger team in Cardiff to better cope with the fluctuation in demand.
They will also not be differentiation between the two R&D schemes and are aiming to meet their turnaround time for both. This will take time though as HMRC will need to train staff and deal with the back log.
This comes as HMRC recently revealed there was a 22% year on year increase in the number of R&D claims submitted for the 2017/18 tax year. However, HMRC are hoping to see improvements in processing times in the near future.