Followers of my Blog will recall that on 8 December I suggested that one of the proposed changes to the EPW rules in the R&D legislation was (in my view) defective. I believe that the proposed amendment (which deals with the quantum of any EPW claim between connected parties) effectively undoes the main amendment which essentially does away with the “tri-partite rule”.

I spoke to the R&D technical team at HMRC and pointed out this issue and they promised to look at it.  I chased for a response on 30 December and was told that the matter was still “under consideration”! I am still waiting to hear their views. Why?  Either the amendment works or it doesn’t.