taxnova.ai

What It Is

Taxnova is an AI-assisted R&D tax credit claim preparation service provided by a UK company. Its core positioning is not to replace tax advisors, but to turn the R&D tax relief/credit process from interviews and form-filling into an automated, traceable workflow based on engineering and financial data. It is currently explicitly live in the UK and US, targeting HMRC and IRS compliance scenarios.

Core Capabilities

The platform can connect to systems such as Jira, Linear, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, Notion, Google Docs, Slack, Xero, QuickBooks, and NetSuite via read-only API keys or data exports. It automatically identifies qualifying R&D activities, generates technical narratives, estimates employees’ R&D time allocation, and links claim narratives to tickets, commits, and documents. Its terms disclose the use of AI and third-party LLM APIs, but the outputs are drafts and must be reviewed by humans and qualified professionals.

Pricing and Trial

The website does not publish package pricing. Case studies indicate that it uses fixed-fee pricing, with fees not increasing linearly with the claim amount, and that terms are governed by separate MSA/DPA agreements. The site offers a Book a demo option; case studies mention trials and pilots, but do not state whether they are free.

Pros and Cons

The main advantage is that it can significantly reduce engineering-team involvement, with multiple case studies citing around an 80% reduction in preparation work. Because evidence comes from real engineering systems, it is more auditable than traditional interview-based approaches, and it can also work alongside existing advisors. The drawbacks are that it is only explicitly available for the UK and US, pricing details are not transparent, Taxnova does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice and does not guarantee tax outcomes, and SOC 2 is still in certification/preparation.

Who It’s For

Taxnova is suitable for SaaS, AI, developer-tool, and other technology companies that already have meaningful R&D investment, fragmented engineering data, and annual R&D claims that rely on CTOs or engineering leads manually recalling past work. It is especially relevant for CFOs and finance leaders who want to make claims more defensible while reducing interruptions to engineering teams.

China Access and Alternatives

The website does not provide information on access from China, RMB payments, or Chinese-language support, so china_access can only be considered unknown. If a Chinese company is claiming local super deductions for R&D expenses, Taxnova’s current materials do not indicate support for China’s tax system; local tax and finance service providers, accounting firms, or domestic R&D expense management software should be considered first. If the company has entities and R&D teams in the UK or US, it may be worth evaluating Taxnova’s cross-border applicability.