Corporation Tax Return | A Step-by-step Guide on How to Do It

Picture of Written by: Liez Comendador
Written by: Liez Comendador
Easy Guide for Beginners on How to Pay Corporation Tax

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Contents

Corporation Tax is paid on any taxable profits that your organization has. You’ll have to make good on Corporation tax if you set up as a limited company, charity, affiliation, or society. Consider it identical to income tax. Corporation Tax is an income tax for organizations.

However, the thing that matters is that companies don’t have an individual return. This implies that when your business begins making a profit, it needs to start paying Corporation Tax Return at the 19% rate (except if it’s recently made misfortunes). This article intends to provide you every detail regarding your CTR.

What is Company Tax Return?

A company tax return outlines the monetary action of an organization during its yearly corporation tax accounting period. It is utilized to show how much taxable profit an organization has made throughout that timeframe and how much corporation tax it needs to pay on these profits.

A company tax return should contain form CT600 with figures showing how much corporation tax the organization owes.”

A full arrangement of annual (legal) accounts, and a reasonable delineation, all things considered and additional contests used to arrive at the last figures displayed in structure CT600. An accountant would actually want to deal with this for you in the event that you would prefer not to do it without anyone’s help.

Company Tax Deadlines

Corporation tax isn’t just reliant upon the circumstance of your accounting period.”

Yet, from a viable point, it is imperative that whenever you have reached at the company’s year-end that you arrange for your accountant to set up the financial records straightaway. You should file your corporate tax return within 12 months of your organization’s accounting period. As recently prompted, you may depend on your accountant, yet the directors must guarantee this is done.

Should your business profit up to £1.5 million, you should pay charges owed to HMRC within nine months and one day from the end of your bookkeeping period. Inability to do so will bring about monetary penalties for your company.

HMRC will consistently recommend setting up a direct debit to guarantee you remember and, on the off chance that you don’t have a corporation tax liability, you should ask HMRC you have ‘nil to pay.’ 

It would be best if you now recorded your corporate tax returns on the web. You are not, at this point, ready to do as such by post without a sensible excuse, for example,

  • Your accomplice or another direct relation died right away before the tax return or payment deadline. 
  • You had an unforeseen stay in the clinic that kept you from managing your tax issues
  • You had a genuine or hazardous disease 
  • Your PC or programming flopped not long previously or while you were setting up your online return.
  • Service problems with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) online services
  • Flood, fire, or burglary kept you from finishing your tax return 
  • Postal postpones that you were unable to have anticipated 
  • Delays identified with an inability you have

Who Needs to File a CTR?

Corporation Tax Rate

When it comes to who pays corporation tax, the legislation applies to:

  • The UK listed limited companies
  • Foreign companies with offices in the UK
  • Independent clubs and connotations

The sum you pay for corporation tax liabilities doesn’t rely upon the size of your organization yet on your annual profits. ”

Overlooking these payments will bring about fines credited to your business. For instance, the corporation tax rate for the 2020/21 tax year is 19% taxable profits charged. While more modest companies could exploit the ‘small profit rate’ before 2015, this isn’t similar today.

The flat rate is charged across all companies yet is relied upon to be decreased by 1% in 2020, to 18%. Note likewise that should you sell any organization resource, you should pay corporation tax on all benefits, otherwise called chargeable gains. The corporation tax liabilities are payable on all business exchanging:

  • Sale or disposal of business assets
  • Profit from sales, rent, etc.
  • Income from savings deposits

When and How to File Company Tax Return?

A UK company tax return is generally made up of the following items:

  • Form CT600 which an authorized cosigner must sign; director, company secretary, or authorized tax evocative
  • The Company accounts, known as statutory accounts. These are the records the organization should plan for its individuals under the Companies Act, including chiefs’ reports and, if possible, evaluator’s or the auditor’s reports.
  • Separate calculations or calculations showing how figures on the CT600 have produced
  • Additional pages to the CT600 where essential.

You will typically need to record one Company tax return each year, except if your annual accounts length a time of over 12 months. You should record two tax returns in such cases: one covering the initial year time frame and a second return for the excess timeframe.”

On the off chance that you feel ready to do so, you may finish your Company Tax Returns. You may utilize an accountant or tax advisor if you wish. Company tax returns can be perplexing, especially if you have no related knowledge around here.

Along these lines, it very well may be a smart thought to track down a legitimate accountant to help you. If you choose to do this, you should advise HMRC. You should record company tax return online with HMRC. Suppose you are not utilizing a specialist, accountant, or tax advisor to finish and file tax returns for your sake. In that case, you should enlist for Corporation Tax Online and record your own tax returns electronically through that framework. 

The cutoff time for conveying your tax return is within a year of the end of your company’s accounting period for corporation tax. The measure of tax your organization will pay relies upon the measure of profits produced during its corporation tax accounting period. 

Tax Return Deadline

You cannot pay by post. Corporation tax must be paid electronically using one of the following methods:

  • Online or telephone banking
  • Direct Debit
  • CHAPS
  • At your bank or building society
  • BACS

What Information Do I Need to Provide?

When your new company has been effectively consolidated, you have various documenting necessities for Companies House and HMRC to acquaint yourself with.

A confirmation statement is a report containing precise and exceptional data about a limited company on a specific date.”

The motivation behind documenting a confirmation statement essentially once 12 months is to affirm the limited company details you have registered at Companies House and update any progressions to investors’ subtleties as well as given share capital. Companies House will check the affirmation proclamation subtleties against the public register and update any progressions to investors’ details and share capital whenever required. Different changes ought to be accounted for independently and affirmed on the confirmation statement.

  • Company name and number
  • Officers (directors and company secretary)
  • Registered office address
  • Persons with significant control (PSCs)
  • Principal business activities
  • Made-up date of the return – date at which all information must be correct
  • Members (shareholders, guarantors, or LLP members) 
  • Alternative inspection location (SAIL address) if you use one.
  • Share capital (companies limited by shares only)

Penalties of Late Submission of Company Tax Return

The HMRC would be onto you for making good on the tax in the event that you attempted to cite some unacceptable or no reference in your liability.”

You can make alterations to this by speaking with the Collector of Taxes with every one of the details of your payment and your right installment reference, and they will then, at that point, redistribute your payment against your organization’s liability. Interest on underpayment will, in any case, be expected of you. Following are the penalties for your fledgling conduct by the HMRC;

For Late Tax Returns

Following penalties have been set by HMRC if you are late for filing the tax return:

  • £100 fine being late for one day
  • Another £100 fine for 90 days
  • After a half-year period, HMRC will evaluate your bill and add a 10% penalty onto what it considers your unpaid tax.

Late corporation tax payments

Interest will be charged on the sum you owe to HMRC, or you need to suffer the consequence on the off chance that you are late in settling the tax. HMRC influences to complete an activity to recover any cash due, which incorporates:

  • Unsettled money will be subtracted through your earnings or pension.
  • If you have possessions in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland, they will be hawked by the debt accumulating establishments on the orders of HMRC.
  • HMRC will shut down your business by taking cash from your bank accounts and taking you to courts. Then, at that point, you will petition for financial protection or bankruptcy.
Don't hide your profits or you could be fined 100% of your earnings.

False information

If you document a company tax return and it’s discovered to be off base, HMRC will fine you. The amount you need to pay relies upon whether HMRC accepts the intentional mistake, regardless of whether you attempted to conceal it, and whether you voluntarily concede to it before HMRC discovers. On the off chance that HMRC chooses:

  • If you intentionally provided false statistics, it was not hidden, around 20-70% of the fine you will be confronting. But, if HMRC exposes your ingenuity, this fine will be 35-70%.
  • If you admit imprecision, you could be indicted between 0-30% of your tax bill. If HMRC hooks you, this penalty will sort between 15-30%.
  • If you purposely hide your profits, you will have to pay a fine of 100% profit.

Should you commit an error while presenting your corporate tax liability, you should disclose it to HM Revenue and Customs right away.”

Doing so may lessen the punishment brought about or eliminate it by and large. Be that as it may, if your organization is confronting income issues and is battling to cover corporate tax, or even VAT and PAYE, when due – a chance to pay arrangement might be a reasonable choice. HMRC time to pay agreement is a legitimate plan, where your organization proposes to spread cash owed across a concurred timescale. You should give proof to help with your proposed reimbursement plans.

Various kinds of companies will frequently have distinctive filing and reporting requirements. The above mentioned is an overall outline of the primary recording necessities on How to file a Company Tax Return for a standard privately owned business limited by shares.

Different sort of companies, for instance, a community organization or those endeavor other managed activities, will have extra filing prerequisites. If you have questions that were not tended to in this article, go ahead and send us a message. It’d be our pleasure to answer your questions. Also, if you are experiencing issues in filing your corporation tax return, Legend Financial has a group prudent to offer the best guidance to our customers.

References

Accounting periods for Corporation Tax. (n.d.). Retrieved from gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/corporation-tax-accounting-period

Company Tax Return. (n.d.). Retrieved from gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/company-tax-returns/penalties-for-late-filing

Company Tax Returns. (n.d.). Retrieved from gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/company-tax-returns

Corporation Tax. (n.d.). Retrieved from Practical Law: https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/1-107-5999?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true

Taxation: Policy and Practice 2019/20 26th Edition 2019. (n.d.). In A. Lymer, Taxation: Policy and Practice. Fiscal Publications.

UK legislation. (n.d.). Retrieved from legislation.gov.uk: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/4/contents

Author

  • Fahad Lateef

    Fahad is a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA), proficient in numeracy and impassioned with giving concise advice to a wide range of clients related to different industries. With an immense experience of over a decade, he has worked as an advisor on different projects run by audit giants like Deloitte and others. He is a firm believer in mutual growth and an established culture of embracing change.

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Picture of Fahad Lateef
Fahad Lateef
Fahad is a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA), proficient in numeracy and impassioned with giving concise advice to a wide range of clients related to different industries. With an immense experience of over a decade, he has worked as an advisor on different projects run by audit giants like Deloitte and others. He is a firm believer in mutual growth and an established culture of embracing change.

3 thoughts on “Corporation Tax Return | A Step-by-step Guide on How to Do It”

  1. Hi
    We were wondering if you could help us , we are a new business we start3 last year ‘ we have not made any sales last year due to coved and being able to get it off the ground but we still have to do corporation tax ‘ I’m really struggling with this as it’s so hard ‘ we have been pushing it forward in regards to the business over the last few weeks ‘ is there any way you could help us
    Thanks Wendy
    It’s my choice limited

  2. Darren Menzies

    Corporation Tax can be a very complicated payment to set up and pay. The article gave me the correct advice, that it is better to have a professional Chartered Accountant to prepare and submit the return. Anyone who may wish to try and attempt the return themselves, would find it a very complex area of a business to deal with and if you don’t know what you are doing you could easily find yourself paying penalties and maybe even be investigated by HMRC.
    On reading the article though, Legend Financial definitely have the knowledge, experience and the right advice to help me in this area of business that is very difficult.

    1. Hi Darren,

      Thank you for taking time and reading the article.
      We actually have seen people trying doing themselves and being caught up in big trouble. It’s always good to seek advice. This is also one of the reason that we do not charge for initial consultancy. Please feel free to contact us when you ready to discuss further.

      Regards,
      Fahad

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