Revenue have announced that early payments are available for excess R&D tax credits that are due to be paid in 2020. This creates an opportunity for companies that are in an R&D tax credit refund position to file their 2019 corporation tax returns early.
In the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and subject to appropriate checks in selected cases, Revenue will expedite the payment of any instalments of excess R&D tax credit that are due to be paid in 2020, bringing forward payment in advance of the date provided by Section 766 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.
This means that R&D tax credit instalments due for FY2017 and FY2018, together with the FY2019 first instalment, will be expedited by Revenue once the FY2019 corporate tax return has been submitted (along with a request made via MyEnquiries).
To enable payment of the excess credits, the Form CT1 for the company’s accounting period must, at the time of the request, be submitted.
The above will act as an incentive for companies to prepare the R&D tax credit calculations as soon as possible and submit the FY2019 corporation tax return to Revenue, thus facilitating early refunds.
For many companies, tagged iXBRL accounts are required at the time of filing the corporation tax return. It is expected that Revenue will relax the requirement for tagged accounts to be filed early, thus enabling the R&D credit refund to be processed and the tagged accounts to follow later.
