#FindOutinFifteen by Simon Bulteel

Hi there, I'm Simon. I'm an accountant, but I don't do any accountancy any more! I help the clients of other accountants, or a business that approaches us directly to identify whether any of their historic, or even future work might be elgible to claim Research & Development (R&D) Tax Credits. I left accountancy practice in 2006 having prepared a claim for a business that designed and developed large scale water purification systems. They supercharged their under sink water purification technology and adapted it to fit in a 60ft shipping container that was purchased by the British Army just as they were about to embark on a number of large scale international deployments. This system allowed them to deliver potable drinking water from any water source other than the sea. When I left practice, I went into Clinical Research and became the European Finance Manager for a company called INC Research. They did exactly what their name said, they helped Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies to take their drugs and devices through the complex world of clinical trials, just like those the potential Covid 19 vaccines are running through now. The company is now called Syneos Health. The company was large and had been involved in R&D since it started, but had never claimed R&D Tax Credits. At the time you could go back 6 years (this is now reduced to 2 years) so I spent much of my first year preparing historical claims. I also learnt about similar schemes in France and the Netherlands and worked with external partners to help delvier claims in both countries. INC grew through acquistion and merger during the six years that I was there until the summer of 2012, and it was after one such merger that I and my small finance team were notified that we would be made redundant, once the systems had been integrated and the new team had been fully trained on the system. Having tapped into my professional network I managed to find a job as a finance manager for a small but very successful motorsport team, who had recently won the GT1 World Championship with a Nissan GTR GT1 spec race car, that they built in partnership with NISMO. I worked with the company and a motorsport expert to prepare a clam for that championship winning season and it was the output from that piece of work that really got me thinking that I had a lot of knowledge around this subject and less than 12 months later, I handed in my notice to work full time in Cooden Tax Consulting. The rest as they say is history.  We partner with a number of accounting firms in London and the Southeast to help their clients prepare robust and financially accurate claims for R&D Tax Credits, but we also work with businesses who approach us directly as their accountant has been unable to help them. If you are a business owner or an accountant, we can certainly help you make the most out of R&D Tax Credits.