News

Changes to Child Benefit

On 7 January 2013 there was a new tax charge where a taxpayer or their partner get child benefit and either of them has an income of over £50,000 in a tax year.

There is an option to stop receiving the child benefit or to remain in receipt and to declare the payments for income tax purposes. This should only be decided after careful consideration.

Please contact us if we can assist completing your 2012/13 tax return.

Sign in black for Companies House

The Companies Act 2006 requires all forms and accounts to be signed only in black.

If the signatures are in another colour the accounts might be rejected, which can prove rather expensive. This is contrary to the rules in some other countries that do not allow signatures in black!

Late filing penalties for companies and limited liability partnerships

Companies House have decided to get tough and implement a new penalty system for the late filing of accounts. After many years of an initial £100 fine, this represents quite a change. If a company fails to comply with filing regulations in respect of the previous financial year (and that previous financial year begins on or after 6th April 2008) the filing fee will be double that shown in the table below. The maximum fine for filing late accounts for a private company will become £3,000 (for a public company the fine could be £15,000). The new regulations came into force 6th April 2008 and are effective for accounting periods commencing on or after 6th April 2008, or for accounts filed on or after 1st February 2009.

Length of period	Private company £	Public company £
Not more than 1 month	150	750
More than 1 month but not more than 3 months	375	1,500
More than 3 months but not more than 6 months	750	3,000
More than 6 months	1,500	7,500

This coincides with the reduced time limits for filing accounts for private and public companies. The new time limit for a private company is 9 months.

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Staff News

Well done to Ellie Bolus for passing her first two Knowledge Papers for her Chartered Accountant qualification, receiving 97% in Accounting and 84% in Assurance.

Star of the month

Each month the audit office vote for their “star of the month”. This can be for any reason that they deem appropriate (i.e. helpful behaviour, nice hair…). The voting is carefully collated and this month the star goes to:

Small Accounts Department

for all their hard work during January.