My client year end date is 30th August 2015 (As per companies house record) but I have prepared accounts dated 31st August 2015.
Will companies house reject the accounts if there is a one day difference ?
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If you use the Companies House template, for the submission of abbreviated accounts, there shouldn't be a problem. However, on the face of what you say, you could be filing these accounts late?
Presumably, the year end was changed to 30th (August) at some point? Usually, the accounting reference date is the end of the month, the year following the date of incorporation, i.e company incorporated 18th August 2016 will have the first accounting period ending on 31st August 2017.
It may be advisable to extend the accounting reference date, by one day?
No they will be perfectly compliant as there is a provision allowing companies to choose any date within 7 days of the a.r.d. - that is to help companies that like to use 52 or 53 accounting periods so that they always draw up their balance sheets on the same day of the week.
Companies House will accept accounts made up to 7 days either side of the accounting reference date.
This should not be a problem with Companies House, as has already been said, but is the underlying problem that the Accounts are actually made up to the 30th August 2015 but are labelled as 31st August 2015 ... a slightly different matter. In addition, you may have to file two Company Tax Returns as the trading period is one year and one day and you cannot file a Tax Return that covers more than a year (other than Companies whose year ends on the 28th February and 29th every fourth year).
I thought HMRC had agreed that accounts drawn up to within 7 days of an unchanged a.r.d. would be treated for tax purposes as covering exactly a year.
This is something that I do not know about.
All the documentation I can find (both CT600 V2 and CT600 V3) simply says that a Company Tax Return cannot exceed a period of one year.
Perhaps you can provide a link to details of this concession?
That does relate to an arrangement specifically agreed with HMRC in advance and effectively deals with accounting periods that always end on a specific day rather than a specific date. With the pre-arrangement condition required, however, there is no allowance otherwise for random Company Tax Accounting periods of longer than one year.
Technically, then, you can file a Company Tax Return for a period covering longer than 12 months but the Tax Return will show that the period is for 12 months to the mean date. A case of when is a year not a year.
I have never been required to make such pre-arrangements, but I can see that some trades might like to take advantage of that facility.
I think the point is that in the real world there is no need actually to jump through the hoops of making a pre-arrangement. Just be aware of what type of arrangement it is HMRC's policy to accept and submit the CT return on that basis.
I do not think EXTENDING the year by one day will avoid penalty. It would be a pointless exercise (even if permitted by CH).
RM