Detox your business with R&D tax credits

Hands up who, every year, enthusiastically swears to stick to a more healthier lifestyle, only to revert to Friday morning bacon rolls, a week later? Come on, we know its not just us!

Why not set yourself up for detox success, by instead putting all your energies into giving your business a health boost? R&D tax credits could be the perfect detoxing agent and following these tips could make your company (and yourself!) financially healthier:

1. Detox your habits. Time to take a closer look at your day-to-day activities! Could you be carrying out R&D without realising it? Are you pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the box? Pouring money into trying new things to improve your products and services? Sometimes failing? 

If you can answer yes to any of these questions then you may be doing R&D. Which means that you could be eligible for R&D tax credits, giving your company a nice healthy financial boost.

2. Embrace the art of decluttering. How? By keeping track of staff time. Knowing what your staff are spending their time on is, of course, just good business sense. However, when it comes to R&D tax credits, its more important than ever to keep track the biggest cost in the majority of claims is that of staff and having an accurate record of what every member of staff has worked on in a year will help make sure you maximise your claim. 

Setting up a tracking system could be the decluttering action that your business needs.

3. Some is good, more is better. After your R&D tax credit claim has gone in, resulting in a nice financial boost for your company, make sure you reinvest in more innovation! Now is the time to flush out those stagnant old methods and look at reinvesting in more R&D and innovation, thus creating a never-ending loop of financial rewards for your business.

4. Keep going. Don't make claiming for R&D tax credits just another failed resolution. Turn it into a habit that you keep up with year on year, continually claiming and reinvesting.

5. Don't go it alone. It's always easier to keep New Year resolutions with support, so let Hulton Associates be your detox support group! Contact Mark Lear on 07967 462704. We can help!

Antibiotic Resistance: A Return to the Medical Dark Ages ?

What images spring to mind when you consider healthcare in the middle ages? A world of pestilence and plague? Where illnesses were treated with superstition and old wives tales, rather than antibiotics and clinically proven drugs? Recently, Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that we could soon be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine” as a result of the increasing threat of antibiotic resistance. 

Can you comprehend a world without antibiotics? Back in the middle ages rates of mortality were high from illnesses readily treatable in today’s world with a dose of antibiotics. Even something as simple as a cut finger could end in an untimely death.

Antibiotics are medicines that inhibit growth or kill microorganisms that can cause all sorts of nasty infections and diseases. In 1928 Ayrshire born Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin: this marked the start of modern antibiotics. Healthcare was revolutionised: less women died from infections following child birth; soldiers injured in warfare were less likely to die from infection; life threatening diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and sexually transmitted diseases could be managed by antibiotics.

However, this miracle cure soon resulted in the widespread overuse and misuse of antibiotics, which lead to a far more alarming problem, which is now a major threat to public health: antibiotic resistance. In layman’s terms, this is when bacteria no longer respond to antibiotics. Bacteria are pretty crafty, failure to complete a course of antibiotics may leave a few tougher bacteria to survive and multiply; in other cases bacteria undergo genetic mutations which makes the drug non-longer effective.

Lots of diseases that we thought we had mastered are now on the rise, only this time a little bit more scary. Meticillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of bacterial infection resistant to many widely used antibiotics. It is increasingly prevalent in hospitals: without antibiotics major surgical procedures as knee replacements, organ transplants to complications in childbirth would carry a greater risk.

We all know from reading Victorian fiction that a cough is never just a cough… Tuberculosis was the killer of many, rich or poor. In 1815 it claimed the lives of one in four in England. Improvements in public health and the development of the antibiotic Streptomycin in 1946 made it possible to treat and cure TB. That is, until now. Since the 1980's there has been a resurgence of tuberculosis due to the rise in multi-drug-resistant TB.

But before you get frightened by the thought of an untimely paper cut bring about your demise, let’s consider the cutting edge science that is being carried out by lots of clever people. Researchers all over the world are developing new technology and innovations including: genetically modifying current antibiotics; developing drugs to target the bacteria’s protective cell wall; and targeting the mechanisms by which bacteria form biofilms, a critical phenomenon which protects the interior cells in the film from antibiotic attack.

Antibiotic resistance is a global concern: this week The White House unveiled a new plan to accelerate the research and development of new antibiotics by 2020 and introduce tighter regulations on the use of current drugs. With a global effort to control the increase in antibiotic resistance instead of being “cast back into the dark ages of medicine”, we’ll be propelled to the future where once a disease is tackled it stays that way.

Image Credits: Dr Graham Beards

By Louise Tibbets

Top of the Class for Jumpstart Academy

Jumpstart, the award-winning Scottish-based UK research and development (R&D) tax relief specialist, has revolutionised its training, client service and professional development capability with its industry-leading Jumpstart Academy.

The Academy, which is open to all of Jumpstart's staff and sales associates, has reduced the time it takes to bring its technical analysts fully up to speed with legislative complexities from 12 months to three.

The new concept in knowledge dissemination has also created an unparalleled consistency and quality among the technical analysts, most of whom are educated to PhD level.

Jumpstart director Richard Edwards, who has been mainly responsible for creating the Academy and defining the content of its courses, said: "We have created a central repository of knowledge that ensures we apply our specialist knowledge in a highly consistent way. This means that our clients experience the same level of service and knowledge irrespective of which of our staff they speak to."

The Edinburgh-based company, has successfully submitted over 2100 R&D tax relief claims since 2008 and has recovered £43 million for its customers. Nearly two thirds of its clients are in Scotland, but it is now expanding into the rest of the UK, with similarly exciting results.

Mr Edwards said: "As a knowledge-based business, it is really important for us to have consistency in the best available information and share that with our staff.

"The Academy arose from the fact that we were hiring technical analysts and training them in a very intensive, one-to-one process. This could take about 12 months during which time they sometimes developed inconsistent ideas about how to interpret or apply what can be a quite subjective piece of guidance to the legislation.

"As we grew quickly, consistency became a significant issue and the Academy was designed to ensure that people had the right knowledge in a scaleable way. They can now go through all the modules relevant to their particular job or role within three months, though they can take the courses at their own pace."

Mr Edwards developed the first tranche of content but company staff can now introduce modules which, when checked by Quality Assurance, can be entered into the Academy for sharing with everyone else.

He said: "The Academy lets us do much faster testing, with multiple choice assessments giving people an instant check on how fully they have registered the content. Prior to the establishment of the Academy, we had written exams, which were time-consuming to administrate."

The Academy concept is likened in Jumpstart to an onion, in which the inner core is the Finance Act which is the basis of the legislation and the next layer is the HMRC's Corporate Intangibles R&D manual, which is how the tax authorities interpret the Act. The outer layer is Jumpstart's content, which essentially is information for its staff on how to interpret HMRC's guidance to the legislation. 

"It makes us very flexible," said Mr Edwards. "For instance, if HMRC change their interpretation or their direction on a particular point, we can make the change to our training material, ensure everyone is re-certified and check who has done particular courses."

The Academy has been hugely successful in the sales process, since it demonstrates to clients how much effort the company has invested, and that its level of knowledge justifies the process.

Competitors, he said, continue to struggle both to find appropriate staff and train them quickly enough. The Academy at Jumpstart, in contrast, covers all roles from technical delivery, customer services, finance, quality to field sales.

The ethics and culture of the business are now being built into the Academy's core structures, though Mr Edwards said that at the moment it was a work in progress. 

"It has been very black and white so far in creating material relating to what we do," he said.   

"What we'd like to do is open up the Academy to make it more supportive of material relating to how we do things as well.

"That will start to cover softer aspects, such as how we engage with clients, how we define excellent customer service or sales techniques and tips. It can be much broader in scope."

The Physics of Popcorn

A lot of us see popcorn as a healthy snack that’s quick and easy to prepare at home. We know what temperature to pop it at and how long to heat it for, and the grain itself has been bred over the years to expand more impressively. But, until recently, nobody knew how or why the kernels pop. Two scientists from France have now filled that gap in scientific knowledge by experimenting with popcorn they bought from their local supermarket.

Having established the critical temperature at which popcorn pops (180 °C, in case you wondered!), the scientists recorded a piece of popcorn on a hot plate with a high speed camera; possibly the first time popcorn has been the subject of a movie instead of just the accompaniment. They saw that a ‘leg’ of starch forms between the kernel and the ground, causing the popcorn to jump.

The rotation achieved by a popcorn jump somersault outperforms that of a running gymnast. However, a flea accelerates under muscle power five times faster, and the explosive sandbox tree catapults its seeds with an acceleration 20,000 times greater than popcorn. So it’s not an outright winner in every category.

But what about the most characteristic aspect of popping corn; its sound effect? The sound could be caused by either the formation of a hull fracture, the rebound on the ground, or the release of pressurised water vapour. To investigate, the scientists returned to their trusty high-speed camera, synchronised with a microphone. They proved, conclusively, that a pressure drop produced by vapour release excites cavities inside the popcorn to produce an acoustic resonator. This is the same reason for the similar ‘popping’ sound of a champagne bottle cork.

So this Friday night when you prepare some popcorn and sit down to a film, take a moment to think about the scientific research that has been done into your tasty, inexpensive snack.

But scientists can’t answer the most important popcorn question of all: sweet or salted?

Photo credits: Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Author - Katie Renouf

Unicorns vs. R&D tax credits (7 common myths about R&D tax credits)

We love a good myth, particularly mythical creatures, and especially unicorns! 

The kind of myths we don’t like though, are those about R&D tax credits, that frighten companies into believing that R&D tax credits aren’t for them. 

Time to venture forward and dispel some of those R&D tax credit myths!

1. YOU’RE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR R&D TAX CREDITS UNLESS YOU WEAR A WHITE COAT AND WORK IN A LABORATORY. 

MYTH! Any limited company from any sector can be eligible for R&D tax credits - from biotechnology (where there are actually lab coats) to manufacturing; IT to food and drink; engineering to renewable energy (plus all the other sectors we haven’t mentioned!). As long as you are working towards an advance in your field and facing uncertainty in how to do it you could very well be doing R&D.

2. YOU CAN ONLY CLAIM FOR SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS. 

MYTH! You can claim R&D tax credits for any eligible R&D project whether there was a successful outcome or not. In fact failure can be a good sign of eligibility - what can be more uncertain than a seemingly impossible project?

3.YOU CAN ONLY CLAIM FOR YOUR CURRENT FINANCIAL YEAR. 

MYTH! You can make a retrospective claim up to 2 years from your current financial year end, which means companies new to the scheme can still go back and claim for older projects rather than missing out.

4. RECEIVING A GRANT IS A DEATH KNELL FOR A CLAIM. 

MYTH! Whilst it is true that some grants can complicate an R&D tax relief claim, it is still possible to make a claim no matter what other funding you have received.

5. YOU CAN’T CLAIM IF YOU ARE SUBCONTRACTED TO DO WORK BY ANOTHER COMPANY. 

MYTH! Subcontracting can be a tricky situation in an R&D tax credit claim, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t claim. You need to be very sure about your contractual situation, the work you are contracted to do and who is bearing the brunt of the cost, as all these can have an effect on the eligibility of subcontracted work.

6. CLAIMING R&D TAX CREDITS IS HARD. 

MYTH! OK, sort of a myth, it’s a complicated process that requires knowledge of your technology (easy for you!) but also an in depth knowledge of HMRC’s R&D tax credit legislation (not so easy!). But you can cut out the difficult part by enlisting the help of an R&D tax credit expert who can take on the hard work and complications for you.

7. ALL R&D TAX CREDIT EXPERTS ARE THE SAME. 

MYTH! Make sure you select an R&D tax credit consultancy that understands your technology and will put it at the heart of a claim, leading to a maximised result! 

The right consultants will help you weed through the myths and provide a comprehensive service to ensure you have the best R&D tax credit experience possible.*

For more details and to get an idea of the returns you could receive, call: Mark Lear on 07967 462704

* Unicorn not included

The Next Big Thing in Science and Technology?

Some of our technical analysts have donned their Nostradamus of Tech outfits (think Gandalf, with added wires, apps, test tubes and Petri dishes) and have come up with the following predictions on what is likely to be the next big thing in science and technology : -

Apple Pay - like Paypal but better. Basically, use your phone to pay for stuff. Currently only in the US, but leaked documents at the end of 2014 show it is coming to UK and many other EU countries this year. Again, could be a game changer to rival contactless payment already provided by VISA and Mastercard. Peter Eyles, IT Technical Analyst

Quantum dot televisions - Electronics and display manufacturer LG presented at the CES technology exhibition in Las Vegas, its 4K ultra high-definition television displays that use quantum dot technology, an improved method for producing colour displays. Sounds familiar? That's probably because you read all about it on our website back in May last year! Get a refresher on this exciting new technology by reading Technical Analyst Katie Renouf's original article here.

Internet of Things - kept getting talked about at CES last week. Not sure whether this is going to be big just because people are talking about it or whether it is actually going to be big because people WANT to talk about it. Basically everything in your life will be connected to the Internet in some way. Expect to be able to switch on a light in your bedroom from the comfort of your desk (yes, seriously) Sandy Findlay, Channel Partner Manager

Windows 10 - due sometime this year. A big shift for Microsoft as the operating system is more in tune with the device you are using it on (PC, laptop, tablet, phablet, phone etc) rather than having separate operating systems for each device. Could finally be the push from Redmond to overthrow Android and the boys from Cupertino in the mobile market. Peter Eyles, IT Technical Analyst

A vaccine for malaria? In July 2014 GSK announced that they had submitted a regulatory application for its malaria vaccine candidate. This is the first step towards making this vaccine a reality in the fight against malaria (Scientists have been battling to develop a vaccine against malaria for over 30 years!) and a positive response from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) could mean a policy review from the WHO by the end of 2015. On top of this, in December 2014, a research collaboration, lead by St Jude Children's Research Hospital, announced the discovery and successful initial trials of a compound that tricks the immune system into destroying red blood cells that are infected with malaria, whilst leaving healthy cells unharmed. It also appears to suppress the development of drug resistant parasites. Charlie Burgess, Bioscience Technical Analyst

iBeacons - these nifty little gadgets track you via Bluetooth whenever you are in range, typically in a retail spaceso you walk past a clothing rail and your phone beeps to tell you that they have the dress in your size on the rail and its currently 40% off (this already is the case in some department stores in the US I believe). This could get bigger and bigger. Peter Eyles, IT Technical Analyst

Hoverboards & Hovercars: I don't know that this is my area of technical expertise, but I'm expecting hoverboards and hovercars to come out this year in 2015. Over the festive period I've been watching 'Back To The Future' which was made in 1985 and had useful things to say about 30 years time, also I'd been having one too many sherries, both of which sources assure me of the factualness of these predictions. David Ryan, Systems Developer

Fighting Dirty Against Antibiotic Resistance

Last year we were a tad doom and gloom regarding the global health crisis of antibiotic resistance. Even Prime Minister David Cameron was in on it, stating that we could soon be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine” as a result of the increasing threat of antibiotic resistance. We painted a pretty bleak picture… total drama queens!

Since the golden age in antibiotic discovery during the 50's and 60's, research has ground to a halt: no new class of antibiotic has been discovered in 30 years. Additionally, a worrying trend has emerged: diseases we thought we had controlled are becoming resistant, such as tuberculosis and the dreaded bacterial infection MRSA.

But, however bleak the situation is, we can rest assured that lots of clever scientists are on the case. In fact, 2015 has brought an exciting development in the fight back against antibiotic resistance from the most surprising source – common garden soil!

Surprisingly, many of our antibiotics have been discovered by studying microorganisms that live in soil, however, in the 60s researchers hit a brick wall in terms of the technology used. Soil is teaming with bacteria and represents an untapped source of new antibiotics, but bacteria isolated from soil don’t grow well under laboratory conditions - think bright white lights, clean white surfaces and people in white coats – not a nice environment if you have spent your life swimming around in mud!

In response to this problem Ling et al. developed techniques to grow organisms from the soil by cultivating them in their natural environment. Genius! Why did no one think of that sooner? Essentially the team diluted a sample of soil so that a single bacterium sat in its own little chamber. It was then covered over with a membrane to separate the bacterium from the soil (which the chamber was buried in) while allowing nutrients in the soil to diffuse through to the bacterium. Using this clever, but simple method, the team have so far discovered 25 potential new antibiotics. Teixobactin shows the most promise, it’s toxic to bacteria but not mammalian tissues and, excitingly, it is effective against the dreaded MRSA.

So we say thanks to these researchers, and the many others all over the world, who are fighting back against antibiotic resistance. And lets not forget humble, ordinary, glorious mud!

Photo credits: Northeastern University

Author - Louise Tibbetts

Should You Worry About Gemalto's Breach ?

Gemalto is the largest sim card producer in the world, producing over 2 billion every year. This means that the chances are highly probably that your sim card would have come from Gemalto.

Recently Gemalto confirmed that they have been hacked and that both the NSA and GCHQ had got their hands on the SIM encryption keys from the manufacturer. This mean that both GCHQ and the NSA could access to encrypted conversations, messages and data traffic. But is that this as big of a concern as the media is making it?

No-one is claiming they succeeded in the access

We so far only have Gemalto’s word on the breach, but it’s been more than open about the fact that its systems were hacked into by intelligence agencies between 2010 and 2011.

Only 2G is vulnerable

According to Gemalto, 3G and 4G are too secure and only 2G networks would be affected. Gemalto is currently confident enough to claim that most people have already switched to faster networks, so if a hack had been successful, it would only affect a few people.

The attacks didn’t take place on UK numbers

The attempted hacks targeted mobile operators in Afghanistan, Yemen, India, Serbia, Iran, Iceland, Somalia, Pakistan and Tajikistan. Theoretically that means that if you live in the UK, or at least have a UK or general European SIM you are unaffected.

There’s no risk to card chips or security networks

If a breach had occurred on the infrastructure running Gemalto’s SIM activity, it wouldn’t have any access to payment chip encryption or other security systems. Gemalto isn’t a small player in any field it occupies, it has physically separate networks for all of its sensitive information. Breaching one, wouldn’t mean breaching all.

An interesting question...

While there’s definitely a case for a breach of privacy and a need for genuine concern over the security of our personal information and communications online, the interesting question is, if it is true that GCHQ actively hacked an organisation, from the UK, did a breach of the Computer Misuse Act occur and would GCHQ be liable to prosecution? If one had a genuine concern that their information was being inappropriately processed, would the ICO be concerned?

Of course, it could all just be mis-information.

Author - Peter Bassill

Get out of your funding comfort zone with R&D tax credits

Here’s a question for you, what is it that all SME’s, regardless of sector and location, have in common? The answer - a need for funding.

Whether it’s to help drive innovative product development, purchase capital assets or to implement a sales and marketing strategy, everyone needs a helping hand at some point.

The trouble is that funding is not always guaranteed and even when it is available it has a long developed reputation of sometimes causing more trouble than it’s worth. Back in the day you may have taken out a short-term debt (an overdraft) or a small term loan, usually from a bank, and had to give some form of personal guarantee, which really translated as - “your house is on the line”. Not a risk many are willing to take anymore!

These days of unstable financial times call for a need to step outside your comfort zone when it comes to funding sources. Funding sources have progressed far beyond the old-fashioned bank loan, with the rise of crowdfunding, business angels, equity funding and grants. Depending on your business and what you are looking to achieve the choices for SME’s to raise some extra capital in an innovative way are now greater than ever.

A big step away from the norm for some companies is HMRC’s R&D tax credit scheme. A source of funding from the government, the scheme is driven by innovation, rewarding companies with tax relief based on the amount of money they have put into research and development. 

 Understandably some companies may feel out of their depth if they do not see themselves as doing ‘traditional R&D’. However, R&D can be found in the most unlikely of places and you should not rule R&D tax relief out without first thinking about your potential eligibility, particularly if you find yourself constantly solving seemingly unsolvable problems in a bid to make advancements in your field – whatever sector your company is in.

Turn your R&D tax credit claim up to 11

So, you’re already claiming R&D tax credits and doing a pretty good job of it, but what if you could turn it up to 11?

Follow these simple tips and you too could get that extra push.

1. Look at the technology. An R&D tax credit claim is all about the technology so to maximise your claim get your technical people involved, the guys who know everything about a project, from the advances made to the problems faced. This approach will help you identify every bit of eligible R&D. 

(Yeah, crank it up!)

2. Keep a record of everything spent on R&D, such as staff time and raw materials, throughout the year. This makes collating the costs at claim time easier and also means you won’t forget about any smaller costs, all of which add up. 

(Keep going, the windows are rattling!)

3. If you have received any grants - watch out. Some grants can push an SME claim into the less generous Large Company scheme. This is unavoidable, but by careful consideration of the application and award, the damage may be minimised. 

(Did my eardrums just burst?!)

4. If you have subcontracted out part of your R&D make sure you have a clearly defined contract in place for the work that has been done. Whilst HMRC don’t currently ask for proof of contracting situations, if an enquiry is raised on your claim they will expect to see a contract or they will not accept subcontracting costs as eligible expenditure. 

(Let’s get this party started!)

5. Talk to an R&D tax credit expert like Mark Lear on 07967 462704 or at mark.lear@hultonassociates.com and find out how we can help you go one louder than 10. 

(BOOM!!!!! 11!)