R&D measures in Finance (No.2) Bill 2010–11

In each successive government’s haste to pass the first two Finance Acts this year a number of proposed measures were left outstanding – many of which have now appeared in our third Finance Bill of the year.

One of these a piece of good news is the appearance of draft legislation abolishing the requirement for small or medium-sized companies (SMEs) seeking tax repayments on Research and Development (R&D) claims to own the intellectual property (IP) on which the R&D was focused.

This was originally proposed in Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report of 9 December 2009 and this date has been maintained as the effective date from which it should apply. While no mention had been made of it in the meantime including during George Osborne’s tenure there was a stated commitment to follow...