R and D tax credits set to increase

Use of R&D tax credits set to increase The Sunday Times’ Peter Evans looks at how the Conservatives could boost investment by increasing R&D tax credits and broadening out the range of businesses that can claim them, such as cloud computing and data firms. However, many industries fear boosting the tax credit system will not make up for the loss of access to EU research programmes and experts warn expanding the system to allow companies to claim for spending on cloud computing infrastructure could mean an inadvertent subsidy for Amazon. The Conservatives have promised to increase R&D tax credits for big companies from 12% to 13%, a move experts say should boost engineering and scientific companies and their supply chains of smaller businesses.