Tax year for dividends

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Yeah, if they have left me open for any fines/additional taxes require paying I will be seeing if I can prise any of that cost out of them.
However as I have to sign everything they submit, I guess in the end it comes back to its all my fault cos I signed that I agree with it and as director its my responsibility.

Well yes, but there's mis-understanding advice/not paying attention and then there's just plain wrong advice. If you can't trust what your accountant says to be accurate, what are you paying them for?

But going forward, it is definitely worth getting your head around as much as possible when it comes to running a company and tax as you can. The more clued up you are, the less likely you are to have problems.

[tractor]

...

Sure, it's your responsibility, ultimately, but that doesn't mean they've met the terms of their professional accreditation(s), assuming they have any, so it's probably worth filing a complaint, perhaps with the assistance of your next accountant.

Unfortunately, they are like the medical and legal profession when it comes to professional responsibility. Rarely does one get a result from a complaint against any 'profession'. They close ranks and stick together.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Unfortunately, they are like the medical and legal profession when it comes to professional responsibility. Rarely does one get a result from a complaint against any 'profession'. They close ranks and stick together.

No, you'd think, but honestly it doesn't. Most accountants seem quite happy to screw a competitor, and its actually quite depressing as all it does is generate ill will and lower the whole professions standing in clients eyes.

Look at this another way. You go into a new contract and things are a mess. Do you cover up for the previous permies or contractors, or tell it as it is.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

I've been caught out by this even after I aligned my company year April-March by the handful of days discrepancy between personal and company tax years, e.g. paying a year-end dividend on 3rd April and wondering why things don't add up

But I'm not an accountant!

It fairly common, I would say much more common than not, to use the accounts figure for personal tax if its a 31 March year end. The opposite to the confusion you had on a 3 April dividend, is the number of clients, and tax office bods, who would be confused if accounts and self assessment weren't the same.

IMV with a 31 March year end, cutting off dividends at 31 March has a lot of merit, and is probably common place, save for the times, and they do come up, where you explicitly want to use 1 to 5 April, eg you want to use tax allowances up but equally make the year end look stronger (less likely for a contractor, more likely for a more complex business).

The situation the OP describes used to be fairly common a couple of decades back (feeling my age), but its now out of favour, except for the messy cases where clients use company bank account as piggy bank with contemporaneous allocation to dividend etc. Back in the midst of time, there used to be three ways for directors remuneration to be taxed - actual, accounts or prior year - it seems quite unbelievable now - but the point is, there historically was fluidity in how dividends and salary were linked from accounts to personal returns.

All that said, OP is right to query it an be concerned.