You can’t reuse a research and development (R&D) tax credit claim. HMRC expects you to consider the eligibility of your qualifying R&D activities and expenditure each time you make a claim. And while a claim can’t be reused, if your work is continuing to resolve technological or scientific uncertainty, a single project can span many years.
It’s not unusual for an R&D project to extend across multiple years. As long you continue to incur qualifying R&D expenditure on activities attempting to resolve scientific or technological uncertainty, a project can feature in more than one R&D tax credit claim. Your business must be able to articulate what work was undertaken in the year and how it progressed from the prior year.
You may adopt a consistent year-on-year approach to your claim methodology which might be reflected in the supporting documentation — albeit with different qualifying costs and descriptions of your R&D activity. However, reviewing your methodology at the start of each year is good practice, providing an opportunity to check it’s still applicable and meets the requirements of current legislation. Simply recycling your claim from one year to the next is likely to lead HMRC to ask questions about your preparation process; they may open an enquiry.