Research & Development Tax Tips for Accountants with Mike Dean (Highlights)

Episode 40. On today's episode, Rob Brown of the Accountants Influencers Podcast interviews Mike Dean of WhisperClaims on the opportunities research and development or R&D gives accountants. Mike Dean is a co-founder of WhisperClaims, which helps accountants deliver an in-house research and development (R&D) tax service using the best possible tools and support. He has a 15 year commercial career mostly working with tech businesses and public sector business support programmes, and was a board member at Marconi. An assignment with one of the larger R&D tax consultancies exposed him some of the challenges facing the industry. WhisperClaims' white label technology saw that the market was commoditising and recognised a need to streamline processes provide support for businesses to prepare their claims much more quickly and easily, whilst ensuring compliance. Key shownotes from the whole interview include: ◆ How government incentives encourage companies to do more research and development ◆ Examples of R&D projects and why innovation has so many different forms ◆ Which sectors struggle to innovate and which ones thrive in R&D ◆ The commercial benefits for companies of innovating and investing in R&D ◆ The 2 main eligibility rules for businesses to make tax claims for R&D ◆ The importance of science and technology to drive progress in business ◆ Why governments need to get involved in R&D rather than just leaving it to individual businesses ◆ How R&D incentives operate in most countries to deliver economic value ◆ The role accountants and CPAs play in the R&D tax claim process for businesses ◆ The main options for businesses who seek external help in putting together R&D claims ◆ The similarities between the R&D market in different countries ◆ Who dominates the R&D tax world and how they make their money ◆ How R&D is a lucrative advisory based non-compliance service for accountants ◆ The advantage for accountants of using R&D software to avoid them having to be an expert in this area ◆ The drawbacks of a contingent-based pricing model vz fixed fees for R&D tax claims ◆ The importance of a business model in R&D that puts the accountant at the hub of the client relationship ◆ The problem for many accountants and business clients in understanding R&D tax without dedicated time and resource ◆ How WhisperClaims R&D tax software works for accountants to help their clients ◆ What accountants should know about what is coming up in the unregulated R&D tax space in coming years ◆ Best advice for accountants who want to add value to their clients with an R&D tax service Outside of work, Mike has grown up twin boys, a passion for cycling. After a stellar amateur velodrome and road racing career, a mountain bike accident means he now cycles for leisure and enjoys camper van holidays with his wife Fiona. WhisperClaims website: https://www.whisperclaims.co.uk/ Mike Dean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedeanwhisperclaims NOTE TO LISTENERS: This is a condensed highlights version of the full interview (usually 20-30 mins long), which you can catch as a bonus episode at the weekend. Martin and Rob love to hear from the show's 6000+ listeners in 140 countries around the world. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or success stories, just type sayhi.chat/aip into your browser and leave us a quick and easy voice message. We may just feature you on the show!