The building blocks of accountancy

Susan Hutter continues her A-Z guide of essential matters that consultants and GPs need to consider to run their private practices efficiently. This issue, she turns to ‘F’… 

is for Filing Deadlines

Filing deadlines apply to your personal tax return and your business. Depending on your trading structure, there are other documents that will also need filing by strict deadline dates. 

In all cases, fines are levied if the filing dates are breached.

Your personal tax return for 2018-19, covering the income for the year to 5 April 2019, must be filed by 31 January 2020. 

If not, a late filing penalty of £100 will be levied and, if the return is more than three months late, taxpayers are charged £10 for each day. Beyond this, the fines only get worse!

For those who trade as partnerships, either limited liability partnerships or ‘plain’ partnerships, you will also have to file a partnership tax return in addition to the personal tax return. The filing date and penalties are the same as for personal tax returns. 

For consultants and GPs who trade as limited companies, the company accounts must be filed at Companies House nine months after the financial year end. 

For example, if your financial year-end is 31 March 2019, the accounts must be filed at Companies House by 31 December 2019. 

The late filing penalty is £100 and this increases to £375 after three months and more after six and 12 months.