Corporation Tax Act 2009 section 1126B

Attributable expenditure: further provision

Section 1126B gives the Treasury a regulation-making power to clarify when expenditure on data licences, cloud computing services or consumable items qualifies as attributable to research and development for R&D tax relief purposes.

• The Treasury may issue regulations to identify when spending on data licences, cloud computing services or consumable items counts as attributable to qualifying R&D activity.
• Regulations can specify the circumstances in which such expenditure is, or is not, treated as attributable to R&D — and whether the items themselves are treated as directly employed in R&D.
• The regulations can amend the existing attributable-expenditure rules in sections 1126, 1126ZA and 1126A, and make consequential changes to other parts of the Corporation Tax Act 2009.
• Regulations may apply retrospectively to expenditure incurred before they are made, but only if doing so does not increase any person's tax liability.