Who are ISIS Tax LTD.?

ISIS Tax Ltd was incorporated in 2015 to focus on bespoke tax planning services, often supporting ISIS Accountants LTD. Founded by Adam Shakespeare, the firm handles work such as corporate reorganisations, employee share schemes, and estate planning. R&D tax relief also forms an important arm of their services, with around 12-15 clients submitting claims on a regular basis.

Adam occupies a technical role as one of two Company Directors, working with a small and specialised team. ISIS Tax Ltd joined The R&D Community in March 2024 after one of their clients received an enquiry from HMRC. Asked about their motivation for joining, Adam explained

We realised HMRC would not only be looking at the client, but us as a firm as well. In tax, you are always encouraged to seek second opinions in case there is something someone else has experience in. Our greatest strength is probably understanding our own weaknesses and we knew that we needed the collective help and support of others working in the same field as practical experience is more valuable than anything else. This is exactly what we found with the community, and we found the claim review service extremely valuable.

HMRC enquiries are pretty brutal. But, between our support services, R&D helpline, and community forum there are a lot of avenues for members to get that invaluable second opinion about the challenges they’re facing.

Of course, the ideal situation is to avoid enquiries altogether. Since dealing with these two compliance checks, Adam and his team have modified their approach to preparing claims to make it more thorough by adopting some of the techniques they learned in our courses. The key differences come in how they approach and interact with clients during eligibility conversations.

More effective eligibility conversations

Although enquiries come after a claim has been submitted, the best time to address them is at the very start of the claim preparation process. Following the two enquiries that they dealt with in March, Adam and his team revamped their processes based on our Explaining Eligibility course to ensure they could consistently build strong claims that avoid HMRC’s compliance checks.

Before, we had little structure in approaching R&D claims. We met with the client several times to allow them to explain their work and we would pick up on key words and ask them to expand on that. The clients didn’t know what information was relevant or not and most times would not prepare for a meeting. I would take notes and then I would take what was useful and discard what was not.

A lot of work I did was open-source research to establish the baseline for us. Under our new approach (which we have now used on two clients), we’ve been able to reduce our time commitment and encourage the client to do more, which we believe really counts as it is their claim not ours.

Adam highlights a great point. HMRC will ask the claimant about their projects in a compliance check, not their tax advisor or accountant. Helping clients understand their role and responsibility in claiming for R&D tax relief can be tricky, but it’s ultimately in everyone’s best interest. Plus, the time you save can be spent bolstering other aspects of your service.

Released in October 2023, HMRC’s Guidelines for Compliance 3 (GfC3) are a useful tool for helping clients understand the scheme. As well as thorough explanations of core concepts, it contains practical examples that functionally demonstrate how the legislation should be interpreted.

Related: How to use GfC3 to build strong claims

Staying updated with changes to the scheme

The last few years have seen major legislative changes in R&D tax relief. In fact, at this current point in time, advisors have five different schemes to grapple with. What’s more, HMRC is constantly releasing new guidance and addendums to the legislation, a challenge that was echoed when we spoke to Adam about his experiences:

I am always looking to keep my skills up to date and I would say that at least 1/3rd of my time is spent keeping up-to-date on tax law changes, updates in guidance and case law.

When asked about how The R&D Community helped him stay up-to-date, Adam said

I particularly like the updates on case law for R&D and the discussions that follow in the forums. With a new government we expect R&D will change again at some point and we expect to see more cases at Tribunal and we want to be at the forefront.

We post video explanations of relevant tribunal cases in our Knowledge Bank, exclusively for members. If you want a little peek of what’s included there, we also keep track of all the R&D tax tribunal cases on our blog.

Sounds like a good fit?

If you’ve been reading Adam’s story and feel like you share the same challenges and values, we’d love to welcome you to the community too. You can:

We hope these resources will answer all your questions, but if there’s anything you’d like to discuss, please get in touch and let us know!