The six-point claim review is a free, confidential second opinion on an R&D claim you have already filed. We read it against six of the things HMRC tests, and a chartered adviser signs the written opinion you get back. It runs under a mutual NDA, costs nothing, and carries no obligation to take anything further. If the claim looks sound, we say so. If something looks wrong, we explain what, why, and the routes for putting it right.
Why review a claim HMRC has already paid?
Because payment is not approval. HMRC processes most R&D claims when they are filed and asks its questions later, long after the money has been spent. A company paid year after year can reasonably conclude its claims are sound; that does not follow. HMRC checked around one in six R&D claims (17%) in 2023-24, the most recent year it has published, and relief can be repaid with interest, sometimes with penalties, years later. A review tells you where you stand while there is time to act under advice.
What does the six-point claim review examine?
Six components. Each gets a finding, including where the finding is that nothing is wrong.
1. The technical narrative, against the DSIT Guidelines
We read the filed project descriptions, and any technical report behind them, for the structure the DSIT Guidelines set out: the baseline of what was already achievable in the field, the advance sought beyond it, the scientific or technological uncertainty in the way, and how it was resolved. The advance has to extend the field’s knowledge or capability, not the company’s, and the account should read as the competent professional’s.
Reported back: which descriptions carry that structure, which read as commercial development rather than qualifying R&D, and the passages an inspector would question first.
2. The cost base and the apportionments
A sound cost base maps every line to a qualifying category and applies its treatment: staff, externally provided workers, subcontractors, consumables, software, data and cloud each have their own rules. Staff apportionments should derive from timesheets or project records, not a flat percentage across a department. Payments to unconnected subcontractors and externally provided workers are restricted to 65%, and the PAYE cap of £20,000 plus 300% of relevant PAYE and NIC should have been tested rather than assumed. For periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024, subcontractor and externally provided worker costs are restricted to work done in the UK, with a narrow exception: overseas R&D costs sets out the conditions.
Reported back: costs that look exposed on the face of the schedules, and categories of qualifying cost that appear to be missing — more common than most companies expect.
3. The scheme position and the rate arithmetic
Accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024 fall under the current schemes, and the start date decides nothing beyond that. Because the rules in this component and the two that follow each came in on a different date, the first thing we settle is which set governed the claim in front of us: periods beginning before 1 April 2024 stay under the old schemes, and the last standard amendment deadlines for those periods fall in late March 2027. Which of the two current schemes applies is decided by R&D intensity. A loss-making SME whose relevant R&D expenditure is at least 30% of total relevant expenditure can take ERIS, worth 26.97p per £1 of qualifying spend at the maximum. Every other company takes the merged scheme: a 20% credit, taxed notionally, leaving between 14.7p and 16.2p per £1.
Reported back: whether the claim used the scheme the company was entitled to, and where the figures depart from it. Which scheme applies sets out the test.
4. Claim notification and the Additional Information Form
Procedure fails claims that would otherwise have succeeded. Where claim notification applied — a first claim, or no claim in the three years ending with the notification deadline — the company had to notify HMRC by that deadline or make the claim itself by then. The Additional Information Form had to arrive before or with the return containing the claim. The claim itself had to be made within two years of the end of the period of account.
Reported back: a dated record of what happened when, and a plain statement where a step is missing.
5. The contracted-out and subsidised position
We read the customer contracts and grant agreements alongside the project descriptions: entitlement turns on them. The statutory question for contracted-out work is not what the contract says the work was, but whether, when the contract was made, the customer intended or contemplated that R&D of that sort would be undertaken; HMRC’s guidance sets out how it applies that test. Under the current schemes subsidised expenditure no longer reduces relief, so a claim that still nets grant income off is understating itself. For periods beginning before 1 April 2024 the old rules still govern, and the tribunal decisions in Collins Construction and Stage One changed where the line sits.
Reported back: which projects sit on the wrong side of the contracted-out test, and which have been reduced for grant funding when they need not have been.
6. Whether the record would stand up to a check
This looks past what was filed to what sits behind it. A record that holds up names the competent professionals and their roles, dates its evidence to when the work was done, and traces cost figures back to payroll and invoices. One that does not has to be rebuilt years later, from memory, against someone else’s deadline.
Reported back: where evidence would have to be reconstructed under pressure. HMRC R&D enquiries sets out what a check involves.
Who does the reviewing?
A chartered adviser, who also signs the written opinion. LimestoneGrey is a firm of Chartered Tax Advisers and Chartered Accountants, regulated by ICAEW and registered with HMRC as tax agents, led by a dual-qualified chartered accountant and chartered tax adviser. The opinion carries a name and a professional standing behind it. What our R&D tax advisers do sets out who does the work; how we are regulated sets out the standards.
What does it cost?
Nothing. The review is free, runs under a mutual NDA signed before we see anything, and carries no obligation to take anything further.
There is no small print to hunt for: the review is a high-level professional opinion on the documents you give us, and the short set of terms you receive at the start says the same thing in full. It is not formal tax advice, it does not re-perform the claim, and it does not replace your existing adviser’s engagement. If you later want us to act on what we found, that is a separate engagement, scoped and priced in writing first. How our fees work explains the model.
How does it work?
- The NDA first. Mutual, signed before we see any documents, and we will not contact your current adviser during the review. If you later ask us to act for you, the usual professional clearance applies, with your permission.
- A short set of terms. They record what the review is and is not.
- You send the claim pack. Typically the technical report, the cost schedules and the Additional Information Form from your most recent claim, plus any contracts or grant agreements bearing on entitlement.
- You receive a written opinion and a call. One or two pages signed by a chartered adviser: what looks sound, what concerns us, and where each concern comes from — usually within two weeks of the pack arriving.
What happens next?
The decision on what happens next stays with you. There is no obligation to take anything further, we will not chase you, and nothing goes to HMRC on your behalf without your instruction.
Raise the findings with your current adviser if you want to; ask us if you would like to share the written opinion with them. Where a past claim looks too high and the return can no longer be amended, voluntary disclosure sets out what coming forward first is worth. Where an old-scheme claim looks too low and the period is still within the amendment window, backdated R&D claims sets out the runway to the last standard deadlines in late March 2027. If you end up choosing a new adviser, how to choose an R&D tax adviser and changing your R&D tax adviser cover what to verify and how the move works. And if the claim is in good shape, you will hear that: reassurance is a perfectly good outcome.
Who is it for?
Companies that already claim through another adviser. The most common case: years of claims filed and paid, nobody independent has read them, and the director wants to know the position holds before it is tested.
Companies with an HMRC check already open. A review tells you how the filed claim reads before you decide who answers the letter. Answering it is a separate engagement: HMRC R&D enquiry defence covers claims prepared by someone else. For claims we prepare, enquiry support is included as standard.
Buyers and sellers in a transaction. R&D claims are a standing item in tax due diligence, and one that cannot be evidenced becomes a warranty or an indemnity. R&D tax relief in due diligence covers what a buyer tests.
Why do we do this without charging?
Because it is one plain way to show how we work. Some companies who ask become clients — that is the commercial logic, stated rather than hidden. Others leave reassured about the adviser they already have.
If you claim R&D tax relief and no independent adviser has read the claim, get in touch or call 0330 223 4 223 and mention the six-point claim review.
Written by Matthew Jones ACA CTA. Last reviewed October 2026.
