Changing adviser

Changing your R&D tax adviser

You can change R&D tax adviser at any point: part-way through a claim, after a claim has been filed, and while HMRC has an enquiry open. Nothing in the tax rules ties your company to the firm that prepared the last claim, and the handover involves less than most directors expect.

Which route makes sense depends on where you are. Three situations cover most of the ground, and the right next step differs in each.

What if you are uneasy but nothing has obviously gone wrong?

Start with the free claim review. We read your most recent claim — including one that another adviser prepared — and give you a straight professional opinion on it, free of charge and in confidence, under a mutual NDA as standard. You are not committing to anything by asking: we will not contact your current adviser at any stage, we will not chase you, and nothing goes to HMRC on your behalf without your instruction. You will usually have the written summary, signed off by a chartered adviser, within two weeks of sending the claim pack.

Some directors come away reassured about the firm they already have, and that is a perfectly good outcome. The free claim review sets out what we look at.

What if HMRC has opened an enquiry into a claim someone else prepared?

Then the enquiry is the urgent thing, so the change of adviser and the response to HMRC are handled together rather than in sequence. We take enquiries on as standalone engagements, including claims other advisers prepared. The first step is a conversation about HMRC’s letter and what was claimed, which costs nothing and usually tells us both whether this is worth taking further.

Do not sit on it. The deadline on HMRC’s letter keeps running while you decide, and the first response frames the scope of everything after it. HMRC enquiry defence sets out what the work involves, what to bring and how the fee is agreed. What we will not do is promise you an outcome, because no honest adviser can.

What if you now think a past claim was wrong?

Say so early, in confidence, before anything goes to HMRC. Where part of a claim should not have been made, correcting it voluntarily normally leaves you in a better position than waiting to be asked, because the timing and quality of any disclosure affects the penalty.

What that looks like turns on how old the claim is, how the return was filed, and how much of it is affected. Our guide to voluntary disclosure sets out what telling HMRC yourself involves; HMRC R&D enquiries covers the penalty position, and what penalties HMRC can charge explains how the amount is arrived at.

Do you need your old adviser’s permission to leave?

No. You engage whoever you choose, and the firm that prepared the last claim has no say in who prepares the next one. Here is who actually does what.

  • You decide, and you tell your current adviser when you are ready. Nothing in the tax rules sets a notice period; your engagement letter with them might, so read it before you give notice.
  • You control HMRC agent authorisation, which sits between your company and HMRC rather than between two advisers. If your outgoing adviser acts for you as an agent, you can remove that authorisation yourself, naming each tax service it should be removed from, either through your business tax account or by writing to HMRC’s Central Agent Authorisation Team.
  • We file as registered tax agents without taking a 64-8, so if you have an accountant, their authorisation for your wider tax affairs is untouched and their relationship with you is unchanged.
  • We prepare the claim and submit it to HMRC ourselves, usually by amending the return.
  • Nobody writes to your previous adviser without your say-so. If you would rather we handled that exchange once you have decided, we will.

What should you gather?

Copies, not originals, and none of it needs chasing before the first call:

  • The Additional Information Form for the most recent claim, which sets out the projects and costs as HMRC received them.
  • The technical narrative or report behind it.
  • The cost schedules, and the computations if you have them.
  • Any correspondence with HMRC about the claim, including the compliance check letter and its deadline where one has arrived.
  • Who prepared the claim, and whether that firm is still involved.

Your accountant usually holds most of this even where a separate adviser prepared the claim. If some of it is missing, say so when we speak. Gaps are not a reason to delay the call: what is missing is part of the picture.

Do the deadlines wait while you decide?

No. Statutory deadlines run on their own timetable whoever is advising you, and two of them can be missed during a change of adviser. If your company is a first-time claimant, or has not made an R&D claim in the three years ending with its notification deadline, the claim notification window can close while the question of who prepares the claim is still open, and there is no way to make that one late.

If you are looking at an earlier period, both matter. The two-year amendment window sets how far back you can amend a filed return, and a notification that was required and not made closes the period regardless of it. Backdated claims sets out both, including the periods that are already closed. Check both dates before you spend a month deciding.

Will we tell you your current adviser got it wrong?

We will tell you what we find, once we have read enough to know. We do not condemn another firm’s work sight unseen. Untidy evidence is the ordinary condition of a company that was busy doing the work, and it is not the same as a wrong claim. What you get is a straight professional read of where the claim stands: what looks sound, what concerns us and why, and where each concern comes from. Sometimes the answer is that the claim is sound and HMRC is asking ordinary questions.

On fees: the first call is free and commits you to nothing, and the claim review is free whether or not you take it further. Where an enquiry is open, nobody can say honestly which parts of a claim are defensible without reading it properly first. That reading is an assessment in its own right, and on anything sizeable it is a fixed fee agreed before it starts. Everything beyond it is agreed in writing before work begins, and enquiry work is scoped from HMRC’s letter and the claim as filed rather than quoted blind. How our fees work sets out the basis, and HMRC enquiry defence covers the enquiry route specifically.

If you are weighing up a change, get in touch or call 0330 223 4 223 and tell us where you have got to. How to choose an R&D tax adviser sets out what to verify about any firm you appoint next, including us.

Sources

Written by Matthew Jones ACA CTA. Last reviewed September 2026.

Tell us where you have got to

Whether you are uneasy about a filed claim or HMRC is already asking questions about one, the first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

Talk it through in confidence