Many companies have adopted the end of March each year as their accounting year end date.

Corporation tax is payable by most smaller companies nine months and one day after the end of their accounts year end. Accordingly, companies that have adopted a 31 March date will need to pay any corporation tax liability for the year to 31 March 2017 on or before 1 January 2018; just a few weeks away.

The same dates also determine the payment of additional corporation tax if certain overdrawn director’s loans (at 31 March 2017) are not repaid before the end of the year. Additional corporation tax due will be based on 32.5% of any applicable director’s or shareholder loans affected by this ruling. The tax can be recovered, but there will be a delay. Repayments cannot be made until the effective payment date for the accounting year during which the loans were cleared. Effectively, if the loans are paid back May 2018, a refund will not be made until 1 January 2020.