Innovation and capital tax reliefs

Helping the UK remain a competitive investment location for businesses is a suite of incentives and tax reliefs available to companies spending on innovation or capital projects.

These tax reliefs, which encompass research and development, intellectual property generation and investing in land and buildings, help reduce the net cost of investment.

Our specialist team helps clients navigate the complexity of UK incentives and tax reliefs, ensuring optimum use of the full range of valuable tax incentives to support their investments.

What tax reliefs are available?

  • R&D tax relief
  • Patent box
  • Creative sector tax reliefs
  • Capital allowances
  • Land remediation relief

R&D tax relief

Research and development (R&D) tax relief incentivises businesses of all sizes to invest in the UK. For periods beginning before 1 April 2024, there are two regimes:

  • Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) scheme
  • R&D expenditure credit (RDEC) scheme for spend outside the SME scheme.

For periods beginning on/after 1 April 2024, a merged scheme exists. Boosting the merged regime is an “Enhanced R&D Intensive Support” scheme, providing a higher relief rate for R&D-intensive businesses.

Patent box

Patent box relief allows companies to apply a corporation tax rate of as little as 10% to profits from patented products and similar intellectual property.

It works alongside R&D and RDEC, so businesses can benefit in addition to these other incentives.

The patent box rules include a detailed calculation on how to benefit from the reduced corporation tax rate, as part of the annual tax compliance process. You receive the benefit through an additional deduction from taxable profits.

Creative sector tax reliefs

There are generous corporation tax reliefs and credits for certain activities in the creative industries. Qualifying companies (including charities for cultural reliefs) can reduce their corporation tax liability or receive tax credits on eligible expenditure through creative sector tax reliefs:

Audio visual reliefs: tax reliefs are available for video games, films, high-end television, animation and children's television.

Cultural reliefs: tax reliefs for theatres, orchestras and museums and gallery exhibitions.

Capital allowances

Reviewing your capital allowance claims can reduce the tax bill on your commercial property purchases or renovations.

Tax relief can come from several sources from the purchase itself to improvements like new air conditioning systems.

If you own a commercial property and pay UK tax, you can claim capital allowances on qualifying fixtures. Tax relief varies by expenditure type eg from 100% for electric vehicle charging points to 6% for a new lighting system.

Land remediation relief

Land remediation relief is a corporation tax relief that provides a 100% deduction plus an additional 50% deduction for qualifying expenditure incurred in cleaning up contaminated land.

Our specialist tax reliefs team

Our specialists, located across the UK, come from both technical and tax backgrounds. Whether qualified quantity surveyors, software or mechanical engineers, or qualified tax advisers, the team has the skill set to provide you with proactive, commercially-minded advice that helps you maximise available tax relief through robustly drafted claims.

To find out more about tax incentives, allowances and reliefs, please contact James Tetley.

James Tetley
James Tetley
Partner, Innovation and Capital Tax Reliefs
James Tetley
James Tetley
Partner, Innovation and Capital Tax Reliefs