Planning your filing and payment deadlines for the year

Keeping on top of the deadlines for your company filing and tax payments can be hard work. With so many elements to coordinate and keep track of, it’s easy for deadlines to occasionally slip through the cracks – but that can lead to fines, penalties and other issues.

The key is to stay fully in control of your deadlines and to plan out the key dates across the coming business year.

Your key deadlines for the coming year

To help you manage and plan your company deadlines effectively, we’ve created a list of the key dates – so you can factor these into your planning and avoid those costly penalties.

Company-specific deadlines:

1. File your first year accounts with Companies House - 1 year and 9 months (to the specific day) after your company's incorporation date.
2. File your annual accounts at Companies House - 9 months after your company's financial year-end.
3. Pay your corporation tax (or tell HMRC that you don't owe any) - 9 months and 1 day after your accounting period for corporation tax ends. (Note: if your accounting period is longer than 12 months, the first deadline is 21 months and 1 day after the accounting period started, and the second one is 9 months and 1 day after the accounting period ends).
4. File a Company Tax Return - 12 months after your accounting period ends.
5. Submit your VAT return - 1 month and 7 days from the end of your VAT period.
6. Make VAT payments - 1 month and 7 days from the end of your VAT quarter (1 month and 10 days if payment is by Direct Debit).

General deadlines:

1. End of personal/payroll tax year - 5th April
2. File P35 (Employed Annual Return) and P14 - 19th May
3. Provide P60 to employees (for previous tax year) - 31st May
4. Employment related securities (ERS) schemes registered (for previous tax year) - 6th July
5. ERS Annual Return (for previous tax year) - 6th July
6. Enterprise Management Incentives Scheme notice of options granted - Within 92 days of grant
7. Submit P11D, P11D(b) and P9D returns (for previous tax year) - 6th July
8. Pay Class 1A National Insurance contributions to HMRC (for previous tax year) - 19th July
9. Make second payment on account for personal tax - 31st July
10. Submit self-assessment tax return (if filing paper copy) - 31st October
11. Make first payment on account for personal tax and balancing payment for previous year - 31st January
12. Make Capital Gains Tax payment - 31st January (60 days after completion for gains re residential property)
13. Final date to submit self-assessment tax return online for personal tax - 31st January
14. PAYE and National Insurance Payments due - 19th calendar day of the month after the end of the month or quarter, as applicable (22nd for electronic payments). (For example; many people will think of payroll month 9 as being Dec when, actually, it runs up to 5th Jan. This makes a difference when running weekly payrolls. PAYE payments would be due on 19th/22nd Jan)

There’s a full breakdown of limited company compliance requirements available on the HM Revenue & Customs website here.

Talk to us about planning your company deadlines

Coping with your company deadlines needn’t be a huge chore, if managed in the right way.

Where we carry out the related activities (e.g. your payroll processing) we’ll monitor those deadlines automatically for you – but bear in mind that you remain legally responsible for these deadlines being met, and for any penalties if deadlines are missed.

You can monitor the deadlines for all relevant company and tax activities, but pay particular attention to those we’re not carrying out for you. Having a clear timeline, with reminders in your online diary or your project management software, will help immensely.

Get in touch with Accountants247 in Cheshire to talk about your yearly tax planning and accounting.