Research and Development Tax Credits

*R&D Tax Credits are rising to 30% for accounting periods commencing on or after 1^st January 2024

 The Irish research and development ("R&D") tax credit regime provides a 25%* credit for qualifying expenditure on qualifying activities. Significantly, this tax credit can be used to reduce a company’s corporation tax liability or can be claimed as a cash refund if the company does not have a liability.

This tax credit is applicable to all internal R&D costs incurred from within the EEA, affording a company an effective tax deduction of up to 37.5%, with the added benefit of the possibility of the value of the R&D tax credit being refunded where there is an insufficient level of taxable profits within the company/group. In this video, Mark O'Sullivan, R&D Incentive Partner, provides an insightful overview of the costs that are allowable and how the claim can be made.

Are you eligible?

A company may be eligible if it is doing any of the following:

• Developing a new product, process, system, or platform
• Working to reduce the environmental impact of the manufacturing process
• Working to improve existing products, methods, or processes
• Working on the next generation of an existing technology.

You can try our free online R&D Assessment Tool to help determine whether your company may be eligible for the tax credit. Please feel free to contact us and we can discuss your potential to claim a credit.

Assessment Tool

Watch the video below and find out more about key scientific and technical criteria that activities need to meet in order to qualify for the R&D tax credit regime.

Who do we provide services to?

The benefits of the R&D tax credit are available across all industries. We have worked with companies in sectors such as:

• Pharmaceuticals
• Medtech
• Technology, Software, Gaming & Hardware
• Manufacturing
• Financial Services
• Agribusiness
• Biosciences
• Construction Materials
• Food Production & Processing
• Forest Production & Processing
• Mining, Oil & Gas

Our services

BDO’s R&D services team is a multi-disciplined one, combining taxation experts with scientists and engineers who are positioned to help you with all parts of the claim process and ensure that you receive the R&D tax credits to which you are entitled. Our team work closely with your company to ensure that you meet the regime requirements, file the necessary forms and reports, and ultimately improve your chances of success with the R&D regime by doing the following:

• Technical report preparation
• Financial information compilation
• Documentation systems
• Revenue reviews

The R&D regime is complex, but with our expertise we can help simplify it for you. In our experience, we have found that, in addition to preparing the technical submission, we can empower your people to recognised R&D activities which would help them through future claims processes. This reduces the risk of underestimating your qualifying activities, and therefore the sum of your credit.

We can also help you evaluate how any changes you make to the way you run or organise your business may unintentionally affect your R&D claims. We are also careful to ensure that your R&D tax credit compliments other R&D incentives that your company may have or wish to capitalise upon, for example the Knowledge Development Box regime and R&D grants.

We have created an informative video series which can help you to get a more detailed overview of the R&D tax credit regime and claim process.

What Revenue looks for when reviewing a claim, from both a scientific cand financial perspective. 

What recent legislative and Revenue changes companies should be aware of?

What is the value of R&D tax credit and what are the associated deadlines for making a claim.