The devil will no doubt follow in the Finance Bill detail, but the heads up on IP tax points from the Chancellor’s statement today (23 November, 2016) is:
IP fiscal stuff:
- the new (post-1 July 2016) patent box rules are to be updated by adding provisions to deal with cost sharing arrangements so that companies using these are not advantaged/disadvantaged when it comes to calculating the R&D fraction
- ‘new spending’ of £4.7 billion between 2017 and 2021 to enhance the UK’s position as a world leader in science and innovation (whatever that means …), apparently to be rolled out as £425m in 2017-18, £820m in 2018-19, £1.5bn in 2019-2020, and £2bn in 2020-2021. This is apparently direct funding (grants) into an Industry Strategy Challenge Fund, to be modelled on the USA’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency programme, as well as allocating funding more generally.
- £0.7 billion to support the market to roll out full-fibre connections and future 5G communications
IP non-immediately-fiscal stuff:
- review tax environment for R&D to build on the R&D Expenditure Credit for large companies ‘to make the UK an even more competitive place to do R&D’
- more Science & Innovation Audits
