Research & Development – Enquiry closed with no adjustments after two rounds of response

The Issue

An existing client of Blick Rothenberg received an enquiry notice in April 2025 relating to R&D claims for its first two accounting periods. As the R&D claims had been prepared by the team at Blick Rothenberg, we were confident defending the position.

The Solution

All claims submitted by our team are prepared with potential enquiries in mind, and therefore the first round of response to a generic set of queries (i.e. asking for further breakdowns without anonymisation) was straight forward. We also provided further technical detail on the project. However, we were clear with HMRC that whilst they are free to request information in lay-terms, this is not a statutory requirement, and it is not always possible to do so.

HMRC were satisfied with the calculations and raised subsequent queries on the technical narratives. This was another example where our experience can guide us as to when to take a firmer stance. On multiple occasions HMRC had also expressed that information online had been found with regards to existing solutions, however, would not provide detail as to what this information was or where it had been found.

Our team have decades of experience in preparing and defending R&D claims and we were forthright that for us to adequately respond, we would need to understand where this information had been gathered to put us in the strongest position to defend.cl.

The Outcome

In July 2025, ourselves and the client received a closure notice with no changes to the R&D claims and no penalties levied, which the client were delighted with.