Yes virtually all companies do this but some are very good (or aggressive) at this game. Classifying things as new research is easy to claim and hard to disprove. Think about it from the perspective of an auditor - they can’t do much more than check something off. Like there’s some vague project plan shared as evidence? Alright this checks out. Next company. The real problem is it’s big sophisticated incumbents who abuse this system. Young scrappy startups that are actually doing R&D often underutilize these tax breaks.
Ah, the British tax authorities have a solution for this! They declare that R&D is "an advance in overall knowledge or capability in a field of science or technology" and that an independent expert has to agree with that. This means, of course, quite little is legitimate R&D and proving it is often more effort than it's worth. (It's unconnected that the UK contributes relatively little to major tech advancements nowadays compared to the size of its economy.. ;-))
