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Time flies when you’re having fun.

As you may or may not know I have just come back from my holidays celebrating my first wedding anniversary. I cannot believe that it is a year since Tony and I got married, it has been such a busy year in the business that time has whizzed by so fast.

Wedding pic

This got me thinking about time and in particular deadlines. If you run a business then you’ll know all about deadlines! I thought I would take a quick moment to run through the main ones if you have a business. If you miss deadlines then some will incur fines. So I cannot stress enough that you need to be on the ball otherwise it can work out to be very expensive.

Limited Company accounts

Unless you are filing your company’s first accounts the time normally allowed for delivering accounts to Companies House is:

  • 9 months from the accounting reference date for the private company; or
  • 6 months from the accounting reference date for a public company.

If you are a day late filing your annual accounts with Companies House the fine is £150, this increases to £375 if you don’t file within 3 months and even more after that. They raised £59.1 million in fines last year. That’s an awful lot of late filing done!

VAT Returns

These are due quarterly and have to be submitted and paid by the end of the month following the quarter end plus 7 days. So for example, if your VAT quarter ends at the end of September then your return needs to be submitted and paid by 7th November.

Tax returns

These need to be submitted and paid by 31 January following the end of the tax year. For example, the 2013 to 2014 tax year ended 5 April 2014. The main deadlines are:

  • Paper tax returns – midnight 31 October 2014
  • Online tax returns – midnight 31 January 2015
  • Final payment of any tax due – midnight 31 January 2015.

Payroll and N.I.

For employers who pay N.I. and PAYE this is due on the 19th of the following month.

The RTI (Real Time Information) submissions for the payroll, which tells HMRC how much PAYE and NIC people pay, must be made on, or before, the day people are actually paid. If it is made the day after payday then it is late, and you could get a late-filing notice and possibly a fine.

If you run a business you need to be aware of all of the deadlines that are appropriate to you. If you get a bit overwhelmed by all the deadlines that you need to know about then get in touch. Here at Westwood Accountancy we keep an eye on the deadlines for you and can help you make sure that you’re organised, and more importantly, not incur fines or penalties.*

Give me a call on 01207 509871 or drop me a line to sharron@www.westwoodaccountancy.com

*All information contained in this blog correct as at September 2014