Corporation tax is the tax a limited company pays on its taxable profits. eba prepares the computation and the CT600 return from your statutory accounts, files both with HMRC, and tells you what to pay and when, well before the money is due. Corporation tax is included in the Core package, which starts at £300 per month plus VAT, and in Insights and Partner above it.
Included in Core, from £300 per month plus VAT
The return is the visible part. Most of the value is in the work that decides what goes on it.
Built from the finished statutory accounts, adjusting the accounting profit for the items tax law treats differently: depreciation, entertaining, legal fees on capital items, provisions and accrued but unpaid remuneration.
Filed online with the accounts and computation attached in iXBRL, which is the format HMRC requires. You approve it before it goes.
Equipment, vehicles, fixtures in a building you own and integral features all fall into different pools with different treatment. We put each item where it belongs rather than where it is easiest.
A trading loss can be carried back, carried forward or surrendered within a group. The right answer depends on your other years and other companies, and it is a decision worth making deliberately.
How many companies you control affects the rate bands and the instalment rules. Directors often have more associated companies than they realise, including dormant ones and companies their spouse controls.
Research and development relief, the patent box, creative sector reliefs and share scheme deductions. We tell you if you look eligible and bring in a specialist where the claim needs one.
You get the tax figure and the date it is due as soon as the draft accounts exist, which is normally several months before the money leaves the account.
We are your agent. Letters, information notices and enquiries come to us, and we deal with them rather than forwarding them to you with a question mark.
Every UK limited company that trades has to file a corporation tax return, even in a loss making year. What differs is how much thought the numbers deserve.
Where the tax bill is real money and the split between salary, dividends, pension and retained profit is worth planning across the whole year rather than deciding in month twelve.
Capital allowances are where most of the avoidable overpayment sits. A fit out, a new machine or a commercial building purchase all deserve a proper claim.
A holding company, a trading company and a property company between them create group relief, associated company and transfer questions that a single company never faces.
A loss is an asset if it is used well. Deciding where to put it is a better use of an hour than almost anything else in the return.
We do not sell marketed tax schemes, and we will not put a claim on a return that we would not be comfortable defending. If a plan only works because HMRC does not look at it, it is not a plan.
Corporation tax work runs on the same timetable as the annual accounts, because the two are the same exercise viewed twice.
For Insights and Partner clients we review the position while there is still time to change it: capital purchases, pension contributions, bonus timing and dividend planning all have to happen before the year closes.
The computation starts from finished statutory accounts. Preparing the two together is what keeps the return consistent with the numbers on the public record.
We prepare the computation, apply the allowances and reliefs, and a second person reviews it. Every return at eba is reviewed by someone who did not prepare it.
You get the liability, the payment date and a short explanation of why it is what it is. If it is bigger than expected, you hear it from us early rather than late.
You approve, we file the CT600 with the accounts and computation attached, and you get confirmation from HMRC the same day.
We remind you before the payment date, confirm HMRC has allocated it correctly, and deal with anything that comes back.
Corporation tax is part of the monthly fee, not a separate bill at the year end.
The corporation tax return and computation are included in Core, which starts at £300 per month plus VAT and is billed monthly by Direct Debit. Insights and Partner include everything in Core, so the return is covered in those as well.
Planning work that goes beyond the return sits in eba Plus. A share reorganisation, a group restructure, an HMRC clearance application or a research and development claim are each scoped and quoted as an eba Plus Select engagement before anything starts.
If HMRC opens an enquiry into a return we prepared, we will tell you at the outset what dealing with it is likely to cost. Enquiry work is charged on time because nobody can honestly fix a price for something HMRC controls the length of.
Nine months and one day after the end of your accounting period, for most owner managed companies. If your year ends on 31 March, the tax is due on 1 January. That is three months before the return itself has to be filed, which is why we calculate the liability from the draft accounts and give you the figure early. Larger companies pay in quarterly instalments instead, some of them starting before the accounting period has even ended.
Yes, and most of it is timing rather than cleverness. Employer pension contributions, capital purchases, bonuses actually paid within nine months of the year end, and claiming the right capital allowances on a property fit out all reduce the bill and are exactly what the legislation intends. Research and development relief is worth checking if you are solving genuine technical problems. What does not work is anything that depends on HMRC not looking at it, and we do not offer that.
Tell us before the due date, not after. HMRC will often agree a Time to Pay arrangement spreading the liability over several months, and the conversation goes considerably better when the return is filed, the request is made early and you can show how the instalments will be met. Interest still runs on the outstanding amount. What causes real damage is silence: HMRC has become markedly less patient with companies that ignore the debt and then ask.
If HMRC has issued a notice to file, yes, you must file a return whether or not there is any tax to pay. A loss making year is worth filing carefully rather than quickly, because the return is where you decide what happens to the loss: carried back against last year, carried forward, or surrendered to another company in the group. A genuinely dormant company can ask HMRC to treat it as dormant, but you still have Companies House obligations.
Directly, and in both directions. Salary and employer pension contributions reduce the company's taxable profit. Dividends do not, because they are paid out of profit that has already been taxed. So the right mix depends on the company's tax position, your own personal tax position and what the company needs to retain. This is why we prepare the company return and the director's personal return together rather than treating them as two unrelated jobs.
Corporation tax has the unusual feature that the money is due before the paperwork. Everything below runs from the end of your accounting period.
Interest runs on corporation tax paid after the due date, and it runs from the due date, not from the date HMRC notices. Paying an estimate on time and correcting it later usually costs less than paying the exact figure late.
Tell us about the business and we will say honestly what you need, what it costs and whether a cheaper answer would do the job.
