The pandemic ignited widespread panic and a sudden pressure over remote working countrywide, making the businesses wonder how the work would be managed. It felt like a weight off the shoulders when on 25 March 2020, an announcement with regards to deadline extension for company accounts filing was made. The accounts filing deadline was extended by3 months as a joint initiative between the government and Companies House to ease the pressure on companies whose deadlines were approaching. The government has once again provided an extension of 3 months for various filing in addition to annual accounts filing.
We`re going to do a bit of myth hunting today and dig deeper into the initiative to find out the exact position.
On 27th June 2020 “Companies etc. (Filing Requirements) (Temporary Modifications) Regulations 2020” have come into force which extends the company’s filing deadline as a temporary measure, if the deadline falls any time between 27 June 2020 and 5 April 2021 (including these dates). The extension for company filing deadline etc. under the regulations have been made for 3 months as follows:
| COMPANY TYPE | COMPANY HAS NOT HAD AN EXTENSION OR SHORTENED THEIR ACCOUNTING REFERENCE PERIOD |
| Public limited companies (PLCs)* | Filing deadline extended from 6 to 9 months |
| Private company | Filing deadline extended from 9 to 12 months |
| LLP | Filing deadline extended from 9 to 12 months |
| Overseas companies who are required to prepare and disclose accounts under parent law | Filing deadline extended from 3 to 6 months |
| SEs* | Filing deadline extended from 6 to 9 months |
The deadline extension has also been granted in relation to the filing of the Confirmation statement which is usually filed 14 days from the end of the accounting period. Now the companies have 42 days after the end of the accounting period to file their confirmation statement to Companies House.
Furthermore, the deadlines for event-based filings (changes in details of a director or PSC, etc.) and submission of particulars of mortgage charges (created after 6th June 2020 ) have been extended to 42 days and 31 days respectively.
The epiphany
Interestingly, a deadline extension has been granted for all the major filing requirements except Corporation tax payment as well as return filing. This means that the directors continue to remain responsible for paying corporation tax within 9 months and 1 day from the end of the accounting year and filing corporation tax returns within 12 months from the end of the accounting year. Based on this we can draw a couple of conclusions as follows:
- To pay your company’s corporation tax liability, you’ll anyway have to prepare your company accounts. Hence, we at Online Account Filing recommend you prepare your accounts well in time disregarding the extension
- The deadline for corporation tax return filing HAS NOT BEEN extended, thus it is important to stay alert and ensure its payment and filing as usual for any other accounting period.
