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Land Remediation Tax Relief and Japanese Knotweed

Land Remediation Tax Relief and Japanese Knotweed

Land Remediation Tax Relief

If your company has incurred costs in remediating land affected by Japanese knotweed you may be able to claim substantial sums of tax back from HMRC. 

Costs may be able to be reclaimed on remediated land.

Land Remediation Tax Relief was introduced by the Finance Act 2001 as an incentive to encourage the re-development of derelict land that had been blighted from previous industrial use. Feedback from experts has indicated that a lack of understanding of the relief and uncertainty regarding qualifying criteria has meant millions of pounds worth of tax savings have gone unclaimed. It applies to Japanese knotweed solutions that are “on site remediation” methods, such as our Xtract™ method. It does not apply to Japanese knotweed removal where the infested soil is being consigned to landfill.

Since April 2009 Land Remediation Tax Relief has extended to the removal of Japanese knotweed infestation where this was not planted or spread to site through activities of the claimant or a connected party.

Land Remediation Tax Relief is a relief from corporation tax only. It provides a deduction of 100%, plus an additional deduction of 50% for qualifying expenditure incurred by companies in cleaning up land acquired from a third party in a contaminated state. The time limit for retrospective claims is up to 4 years. It does not apply only to Japanese knotweed, but covers clean up from other contaminants too. So a claim can give tax savings of between 10% to 30% (depending upon the specific circumstances) of the total cost of remediation, back dated over 4 years.

This is a complicated piece of tax legislation often ignored by general accountancy firms. We’re specialists at getting rid of knotweed, but wouldn’t claim to know as much about tax! However, we are able to bring the required expertise to our clients through Clinch Consultants (www.clinchconsultants.com), who with their strategic partners have over 17 years experience claiming back valuable tax savings.

Their technical team are based in London and are dual qualified in quantity surveying and tax, they work with personal clients, SMEs and also larger FTSE companies who include Delancey, Tesco, Asda and Nationwide.

They specialise solely in this field. All work is fully disclosed and complies with HMRC requirements facilitating early agreement within 4-6 weeks. They work on a percentage fee basis, so if no tax savings can be agreed with HMRC you don’t get charged. You have nothing to risk other than a small amount of your time.

Contact us if you think you might have a valid claim and we’ll put you in touch with the tax experts who can help.

Robert Spaceman

“We had a large stand of bamboo removed, thinned, contained and replaced. The customer service has been first class. Joe and Jason were fabulous and kept me well informed at all times”.

5/5