R&D tax rebate boosts Tamworth fabrications firm
A STAFFORDSHIRE specialist fabrications company has successfully reclaimed over £30,000 in tax spent on research and development.
Strongs Plastic Products Ltd, based in Tamworth, reclaimed the cash from HMRC under the research and development (R&D) corporation tax reclaim scheme. The company enlisted the help of Wolverhampton-based R&D Tax Claims to handle the application.
Strongs Plastic Products was founded 34 years ago by managing director Barry Strong, who initially began by building wooden battery boxes for electric milk floats in his garage in Sutton Coldfield.
Strongs now manufactures plastic fabrications for a diverse global market in the transport, aerospace and construction sectors, supplying fabrications for a variety of applications including fire engines, incident support vehicles and lifting platforms.
The company employs 40 people at its 20,000 sq ft factory on the Amington Industrial Estate and it has an annual turnover of over £3m. The company has now taken on a large site adjacent to its existing premises to cope with expansion in 2013.
The firm manufactures a range of plastic products including transport packaging, conveyer systems and complete interiors of incident support vehicles. A large part of its output is in making polymer parts used in vehicle bodies, including fire engines.
One of the firm’s biggest clients is the fire service. It started making vehicle bodies eight years ago by supplying them with plastic water tanks and now manufactures complete interiors for fire engines.
James Strong, technical sales director, said: “Our research and development is constant. We have always introduced new products and approaches and try to continuously improve what we do.
“We heard of the R&D tax reclaim scheme several years ago through our accountants, but we couldn’t progress it. It was frustrating. It seemed like a tremendous amount of work to gather the information to prove the case, and that would have fallen on us, the directors, to carry out.
“R&D Tax Claims gave us a smooth and managed process. They worked with our designers, developers and engineers on site together with ourselves to get information that was factual and relevant. We didn’t have to spend half the time we were led to believe was necessary, even though we could prove we were carrying out R&D.”
Mark Evans, managing director of R&D Tax Claims, said: “Thanks to Strongs’ directors keeping excellent records, this was a very quick reclaim. We had to work fast to submit the reclaim before the company year end and delivered the case to HMRC for the end of April, and had confirmation of a successful claim by mid May.”
