Receiving more than one notice to deliver tax return... what to do?

[polarbee]

Hi all,

Just want to first say hi to all - I'm a newbie here

Recently I received two notices to deliver a company tax return. The first one is what I expected, from 05 Jan 2010 to 04 Jan 2011 which is my accounting period. However I also received a second notice (which I initially thought was a duplicate), for the period dated 05 Jan 2011 TO 05 Jan 2011 (ie, one day!). I am not sure what to do with it, does it means I need to compile a second tax return plus set of accounts for a one day period?

My accounting reference date noted on CH is 31st Jan, so I suspect there is some mismatch in the information between HRMC and CH. For convenience's sake, should I change my Accounting Reference Date to be exactly one year (ie 4th Jan), then write to HMRC advising them of the change, so that I can just get one year's worth of accounts to deal with?

many thanks,

polarbee

[krytonsheep]

Not sure what has happened but it sounds like your first accounting period was 1 day + a year, so they're making you doing a corp tax return for the extra day? From HMRC....

A Corporation Tax accounting period can't be longer than 12 months. If your company accounts cover a period longer than 12 months and your company is active throughout, you must file two Company Tax Returns because you'll have two Corporation Tax accounting periods. This is the case even though you only need to file one set of accounts at Companies House.

[Clare@InTouch]

Krytonsheep is correct. If your company was set up on 05 January 2010 then your first set of accounts will run from then until 31 January 2011.

A CT return however can only ever be 12 months or less, so it's very common to get two returns in your first year. All you need to do is one set of accounts and then apportion your turnover and profit across the two returns by number of days. In future your CT returns and accounts will cover the same 12 month period.

There's no need to change your year end.