Research and Development Tax Relief for the Marine Industry

Does your UK business operate within the Marine sector?

Marine R&D Tax Credit

The marine sector is one of the most thriving industries in the UK. This is because UK is one of the largest ship and boat builders in Europe. It also makes great use of all the innovative sectors in the market to make change.

These innovations are in the following sectors; architecture, software development, engineering, atmospheric science and communications. This also puts almost all the activities in the marine sector as R&D tax credit qualifiers. With all this information, there are however many marine companies that fail to claim for R&D tax relief because they do not have understand their eligibility.

The marine sector also carries out a lot of experimental work and not all of it is a success. This may be another reason why some of them probably do not claim for the R&D tax credit relief. What they don’t realise is that not every experimental innovation needs to become a success for it to qualify for R&D credit tax relief.

Sometimes an experiment would start with all the good intentions and great expectations but even after following all the research, design prototype and testing stages, the experiment fails. During this effort, you have accumulated a lot of cost and time. This alone is enough to qualify for R&D tax credit relief.

What activities qualify for R&D tax credit in the marine industry?

There is a wide range of activities in the marine sector that qualify for R&D tax credit. Below are some of them

• Developing new shipbuilding processes and methods
• Using new construction, materials, processes and design techniques to improve the already existing products or processes
• Combining more than one process, technique or method in a distinctive way
• Automating processes to reduce labour costs by using technical solutions
• Developing systems and processes with the aim of achieving resource that is more efficient
• Using innovative technology to carry out design and analytical methods, and manufacturing processes
• Trying out new software technology never attempted before
• Developing the already existing basic operations in the company
• Improving internal efficiencies using new developed software technology
• Improving efficiency in the processes by using real-time processes and interfacing
• Developing new programming and query languages to increase manipulation and power of search
• Rewriting any existing system enabling it to work well on new hardware in the company
• Upgrading systems that have not been upgraded for a long period

Costs that qualify for marine R&D tax credit

Several eligible costs in the marine industry qualify for R&D tax credit. If you have any of the following costs, then do not hesitate to make a claim through us.

• Research, designing and testing costs
• Employee salaries and wages
• Costs incurred for developing any new patent or software for development or improvement purposes
• Costs for sensors and other monitoring equipment
• Costs incurred for using big data analytics
• Costs for using AI to advance the products, processes and services
• Cost for sniffers used in to monitor emissions from marine vessels
• All costs used in housekeeping tasks such as dispensers
• Costs used for searchers who help in finding and rescuing people overboard
• Costs for heavy task maintainers
• Costs for tasks like welding
• Costs for technical or robotic surveyors that can explore areas where humans cannot
• Costs for using technology to optimise ship designs
• 3D printing costs
• Autonomous systems and remotely operated systems to improve on fuel consumption and weight costs
• Costs spent on lowering emissions thus making the environment safe
• Costs on Indirect activities like finance, administration, personnel services and training

Why contact us?

We know that the marine industry is one of those industries that go through major transformations every year. The industry has come a long way from the old technology to very advanced and innovative technology that has unleashed a completely new revolution.

It is time that marine companies took advantage of R&D credit tax relief to help them carry out more innovations by taking some of the burden away. We are here for you as you keep up with the new era of technology

Click on the enquiry form link below and fill out the claim form and we will be in touch.