Cite this dataset: Parker, A. (2026). UK R&D Tax Relief First-tier Tribunal Case Tracker: Verified Tax Chamber Decisions. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22753345
Not a live feed. This is a manually researched seed set of historical decisions, not a live or automated feed. New First-tier Tribunal decisions aren't added automatically.
Why every case here predates the current rules
Tribunal cases take years to decide, and the merged scheme only started in 2024
The merged scheme and ERIS only apply to accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Because a First-tier Tribunal decision typically follows the disputed accounting period by several years (claim, then HMRC enquiry, then closure notice or discovery assessment, then appeal, then hearing), no tribunal decision yet exists on a claim made under the merged scheme or ERIS specifically. Every decided case found for this tracker, without exception, concerns a claim made under the old SME scheme or old RDEC. That absence is a real, structural fact about how long tribunal disputes take to reach a decision, not a gap in this research.
The pattern that actually holds up
HMRC's "subsidised or contracted-out" argument has lost three times since 2021
Three of these cases (Quinn in 2021, then Collins Construction and Stage One Creative Services in 2024) turned on the same question: does a client paying for finished work make the R&D behind it "subsidised" or "contracted out", and therefore ineligible for SME relief? HMRC lost the argument each time. The tribunal's answer was consistent: work a company does on its own account, using its own judgement about how to solve the technical problem, doesn't stop being its own R&D just because a client eventually pays for the finished result.
That isn't a blanket rule. First-tier Tribunal decisions don't bind later tribunals, and each case turns on its facts: in Hadee Engineering (2020), the tribunal found most of the claimed activity was subsidised or contracted out. But three consistent decisions are worth knowing about if you've been told your work "doesn't count" because a client commissioned it.
The cases
All 11 decisions, newest first
Taxpayer the company wonHMRC HMRC wonPartial the appeal succeeded in part
Realbuzz Group Ltd v HMRC
TaxpayerThe tribunal held that because Realbuzz's adviser-prepared R&D report gave HMRC enough information to have reasonably spotted the claim was excessive within the normal enquiry window, a 'hypothetical officer' should have acted then, so HMRC was time-barred from later raising a discovery assessment, regardless of the claim's merits.
Date note: Decision year (2025) confirmed from the neutral citation; we couldn't confirm the exact hand-down date from the sources we checked.
Lovell Consulting case summary (the decision is published on caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk) · Edwin Coe LLP case summary
Collins Construction Ltd v HMRC
TaxpayerThe tribunal held that costs a company incurs on its own R&D, even while delivering a pre-agreed-price contract for a client, are not automatically 'subsidised' or 'contracted out' just because the client pays for the finished work; the R&D was intrinsic to Collins' own commercial business rather than performed on the client's behalf.
Get Onbord Ltd (in liquidation) v HMRC
TaxpayerThe tribunal held that using existing tools or open-source code does not by itself disqualify a project from being R&D, that a competent professional does not need formal qualifications, and that once a claimant shows enough evidence of a technological advance, the burden shifts to HMRC to produce evidence there was no advance.
Flame Tree Publishing Ltd v HMRC
HMRCThe tribunal found the company's director and production manager, though experienced in publishing, could not show they were competent professionals in software development, and the company could not evidence any advance in science or technology or link its costs to specific R&D projects.
H&H Contract Scaffolding Ltd v HMRC
TaxpayerThis case is included as a records/behaviour case rather than a qualifying-R&D case: the tribunal held it is for HMRC to prove carelessness, that HMRC cannot infer carelessness merely because a relief claim later fails, and that the taxpayer had shown it took reasonable care by vetting its R&D adviser before relying on their advice.
Date note: Reported as a February/March 2024 decision by professional commentary; we couldn't confirm the exact hand-down date from a primary source.
Claritax News case summary (we couldn't find the full decision on a free public site) · ForrestBrown case summary
Stage One Creative Services Ltd v HMRC
TaxpayerFollowing the same reasoning as Collins Construction, the tribunal held that R&D undertaken while fulfilling a client's creative brief for live events and installations was not disqualified as subsidised or contracted-out simply because the client was paying for the end result, reinforcing that reading of the subsidised/contracted-out rules for the old SME scheme.
Date note: BAILII's own page title shows a 25 November 2023 date alongside the 2024 neutral citation and TC09358 case number; other secondary sources describe it as a 2024 decision. We couldn't resolve the mismatch, so no single date is given above.
MW High Tech Projects UK Ltd v HMRC
HMRCThe tribunal upheld HMRC's refusal purely on a going-concern accounting technicality specific to RDEC, not on any dispute about whether qualifying R&D took place, illustrating that RDEC claims carry procedural traps that don't exist under the SME scheme.
Date note: Decision date taken from a contemporaneous professional PDF summary dated 05.12.23; not cross-checked against a primary tribunal document.
Ross Martin Tax case summary (we couldn't find the full decision on a free public site) · LexisNexis case summary
Quinn (London) Ltd v HMRC
TaxpayerThe tribunal held that R&D expenditure is only 'subsidised' where there is a clear link between a client's payment and the R&D costs specifically, not merely because a client paid a price that happened to cover finished work involving R&D, clarifying a point that had been genuinely unsettled before this case.
Gateley case note (we couldn't find the full decision on a free public site) · ForrestBrown, three years on
Grazer Learning Ltd v HMRC
HMRCThe company did not put forward its competent professional to give evidence during HMRC's enquiry, and the tribunal ruled it was too late to introduce that witness for the first time at the hearing, so the claim failed for lack of evidence rather than a finding that the underlying work definitely wasn't R&D.
Citation note: Secondary sources vary on the exact neutral citation number for this decision (variously reported as [2021] UKFTT 348 or 349 (TC)); the underlying decision document and date (23 September 2021, TC/2019/06690) are confirmed directly from the tribunal PDF.
Full tribunal decision (hosted copy, RandD Tax) · RandD Tax case summary
Hadee Engineering Co Ltd v HMRC
PartialThe tribunal found most of the appellant's claimed R&D activity was reimbursed by clients or carried out under terms that made it subsidised or contracted-out, and that the appellant had overstated salary costs and lacked evidence for materials and subcontractor spend, but one project's underlying R&D conditions were met.
Full tribunal decision (hosted copy, RandD Tax) · Source Advisors case summary
AHK Recruitment Ltd v HMRC
HMRCThe tribunal held the appellant had not shown an advance in science or technology: the submitted report described the social-science rationale for the software rather than a technological advance, and no competent professional gave evidence to support the claim.
Full tribunal decision, BAILII · Ross Martin Tax case summary
Methodology
How the cases were checked
Each case was checked against the published First-tier Tribunal decision (bailii.org and/or caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk where available) and cross-checked against at least one independent professional report (accountancy/tax law firm commentary). Cases that could not be independently corroborated were excluded. Fields are marked null where a detail could not be confirmed from the tribunal decision itself or a reliable secondary report, rather than estimated. Accounting periods and regime are inferred from the facts recited in the decision or contemporaneous professional commentary.
Alternatives and limitations
What these cases can't tell you
These are real decided cases, not legal advice, and none of them tells you how your own claim will be treated. If HMRC has opened an enquiry on your claim, see HMRC enquiry: what happens now. If the contracted-out question specifically is live for you, see contracted-out R&D.
