30 September 2024 is the end of the available window for notifying HMRC of an intention to make a Research and Development (“R&D”) Tax Relief claim for periods ended 31 March 2024.
When is an ANF required?
If you’re planning to claim Research and Development (R&D) tax relief or expenditure credit (RDEC) for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023, you must submit an Advanced Notification Form (“ANF”) within 6 months of the end of the relevant accounting period if:
- the company has never submitted a claim for R&D Tax Relief before or;
- the company has not submitted an R&D Tax Relief claim within the last three years.
The relevant window is the three years ending on the ANF window closing date. Therefore, for companies with an accounting period ended 31 March 2024, the ANF window will be the three years ended 30 September 2024.
If the company has previously submitted a claim via an original corporation tax return within this three-year window, it will not be required to file an ANF for that period. However, if the company has not previously submitted an R&D claim or has only submitted a previous R&D claim that relates to a period beginning before 1 April 2023 by way of an amended return and that amended return was filed on or after 1 April 2023, this claim will not be taken into account when determining if the company meets the ANF exemption or not.
Where a company does not file an ANF where it is required to do so, the R&D Tax Relief claim for that period will be invalid and rejected by HMRC and the company will lose the ability to claim R&D Tax Relief for that period altogether.
Example
A company has an accounting period from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The company has not made a claim for R&D in the previous 3 years so it must let HMRC know of its intention to make a claim within 6 months of the end of the accounting period. So, in this instance, the company would need to pre-notify HMRC via the ANF on or before 30 September 2024.
If the company has made a claim within the ANF window, but this claim was made by virtue of an amended return submitted on or after 1 April 2023, this claim will not be taken into account when determining if the company meets the ANF exemption or not and the company may still need to pre-notify HMRC via the ANF of its intention to make a claim for the period ended 31 March 2024 on or before 30 September 2024.
The claim notification can be made by the company or an agent acting on it’s behalf. The information required includes some basic details about the company and a high level summary of the proposed R&D projects.
Claims can be submitted online here using a Government Gateway ID or email address.
In Summary
If you believe your company may be undertaking research and development and it has not made a claim before, or within the last 3 years. Please get in touch to see how we can help.
