Research and Development: Meet our expert Randeep Dhaliwal 

Randeep Dhaliwal was promoted to the Head of the Research and Development team at Kreston Reeves on 1 June.

He joined the firm in 2020 as a Corporate Tax Manager and is involved with a wide variety of tax advisory projects, working with businesses and their owners to add value. This includes research and development credits, tax residency, reorganisations, tax due diligence on the purchase and sale of companies, group structuring, dealing with international groups and share schemes. 

Randeep qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2008 and as a Chartered Tax Adviser in 2016 and he specialises in corporate tax for both UK and international businesses and groups. He sits on the ICAEW’s Business Tax Committee which covers Corporation Tax and Income Tax and helps them to respond to various government tax consultations. He also sits on the ICAEW’s R&D working group and is involved with HMRC’s Research and Development Communication Forum to keep up with the latest in R&D. 

Since his promotion, Randeep is currently focusing on building and improving the R&D services offered to clients by the firm. 

Randeep explains: “There have been a lot of changes in legislation around this area of tax, which is also very complex, so we are building on what we have and where necessary re-designing the services offered to clients. The key changes clients will see so far are that we have a larger team, and we aim to provide a faster service to clients.” 

HMRC recently published figures which show that there are more errors and fraud around R&D claims than it had estimated, amounting to £4bn lost revenue in a 4-year period and subsequently the enquiry rate has risen from around 1% to 20%.  

Randeep explains: “HMRC enquiries of this nature are difficult to deal with and in honesty as it is such a complex area of tax, we are sometimes dealing with new enquiry teams who are not yet fully experienced in this area.” 

“Last year the R&D tax credit scheme changed and whilst it reduced from 25p in every pound to 21p and 15p it is still a valuable benefit to many businesses; however, it now costs more to submit a claim as it takes us more time to prepare. Best practice requirements have also changed, so now more information needs to be provided and HMRC requires a named person and agent to be listed on the claims forms.”  

“Naming agents will help HMRC to weed out those who are making mistakes as well as fraudulent claims. Businesses now need to provide much more evidence for future claims, but there are now many businesses who are having to deal with HMRC enquiries and needing our help and support to ‘unpick’ claims which haven’t been made correctly.”  

“A lot of businesses are coming to us for support to do this. In some situations, they have used agents who have made claims which are not valid, and these agents are refusing to hand back money paid to them. There are stiff penalties for businesses which have made mistakes or worse where they have committed fraud, whether knowingly or through poor advice from an agent.” 

Randeep is based in Kreston Reeves’ London office and his day begins with dealing with urgent client queries and making sure there is someone in the team allocated to dealing with them. He explains: “We have more capacity in our team so we can respond quickly. Clients are often very concerned if they receive notification from HMRC of an enquiry and with these complex claims we need to spend significant time working with them to provide the information needed. For businesses making new R&D claims it can still be a valuable tax credit, but they never receive confirmation that the claim has been approved by HMRC. It is therefore important to have advisors working with you who fully understand this area and have the gravitas and experience of working with   HMRC. We are always happy to discuss with a client whether it is worth them making a claim as there is now a higher cost associated with preparing the evidence and submitting the claim.” 

Randeep describes himself as very sociable and enjoys being in the office which is in vibrant Shoreditch. “I love working in Shoreditch, it’s a great area and here is always something interesting going on either at the office or in the local area. I’m a member of the office book club and I really enjoy reading Sci fi books. Outside of work I’m a huge football fan and have an Arsenal season ticket, so I get to as many home games as I can and if I had the time, I would really love to learn to fly.” 

To learn more about Randeep and how our dedicated Research and Development team can help your business, contact him today.