I’ve been full time, employed, paye since June 2014, the umbrella company that my agency used before that has ceased trading without filing accounts April 2015, and I also requested my limited company be closed down as I’m now full time employment.
I received a letter and the accounts info today, that nothing had been done and I should give to my new accountant! Cheeky ■■■■■■■■■ I paid them £300 to do this.
How can I file the accounts and close it down myself without paying someone?
Google is your friend
Haha yeah mate, but apart from the what seems like the easy bit, £10 to strike a company off, the rest is gobbledegook!
I’ll dig deep and blow the dust off the dictionary
You need to dissolve the company, which it seems you’ve figured out. It’s fairly straightforward. To do so, the company must not have traded or have any income or expenditure (other than that required as part of the process of dissolving it) within the previous 3 months.
Your application for a voluntary strike off will be advertised in the London/Edinburgh/Belfast Gazette (possibly other places), creditors need to be notified, and assuming nobody (such as HMRC!) objects, it’ll be dissolved an struck off the register around 3 months later. Technically HMRC can object to ensure it can chase any corporation tax, vat, PAYE, ErNI, etc, but in practice it’s unlikely if any outstanding amounts are small. Once it’s dissolved and struck off, HMRC can’t chase the company. They can however chase you for any personal tax liabilities that haven’t been paid.
Are you sure your own personal tax affairs are up to date?
Edit: To file your accounts yourself, you’ll need access to HMRCs online services. Did you ever register for them? If so, you can simply go online and file late accounts etc. You have a ‘reasonable excuse’ for the late filing, i.e. your accountants went bust and didn’t file for you, so you’re unlikely to get a penalty. if there’s not much outstanding and your accounting affairs are simple, it might be worth contacting HMRC, explain the situation, and they might just let you send them a paper copy of your accounts to settle things.
Thanks Chris, the company only had money through it for 2 months, May and June 2014 so I’m hoping it’ll be straight forward. I’m not trying fiddle anything I just want it done, pay what I need to hmrc etc n close it, so hopefully they’ll be nice 
Chuck a few quid at a real proper accountant who has experience in this sort of thing. Also tax deductible…
It is easy, but if a clever person does it (no slur intended) then it will be done correctly and there is less chance of HMRC coming after you.
My company is in the notice period right now, no grief from anyone so far.
Cheers
Paul
PS If you want the name and contact details of my accountant, drop me a PM
If they’ve sent you accounts for the 2 months it was operating, i’d either file those online if you have the online login details or contact HMRC and send them a copy and they’ll let you know what you owe them. If your ex-accountants have drawn up your accounts for that entire period, your CT owed will be 20% of the operating profit figure on the P&L statement. They might even have been nice to you and have included a figure for the provision for corporation tax on the following line!
The dissolution is something you can do yourself and doesn’t require an accountant, particularly if it’s as simple as yours sounds. That said, if you can get an accountant to sort it out for you for a few quid (by that I mean cheap, very cheap) it might be worth having them sort it all if you’d prefer to avoid the stress/hassle. You might find your company is already in the process of being struck off - as it was quite some time ago the company was trading, and your accountants haven’t been doing much - they might not have submitted your 2014/2015 annual return to companies house - they can and do strike the company off for that, depending how late it is.
For something this simple, I’d call HMRC, explain the situation, ask to submit those 2 months of accounts and request a settlement figure, and follow their advice from there. They tend to be less scary and actually quite helpful when you call them and ask for help, rather than try to avoid them or bury your head.
HTH.
sonflowerinwales:
Chuck a few quid at a real proper accountant who has experience in this sort of thing. Also tax deductible…
It is easy, but if a clever person does it (no slur intended) then it will be done correctly and there is less chance of HMRC coming after you.
My company is in the notice period right now, no grief from anyone so far.
Cheers
PaulPS If you want the name and contact details of my accountant, drop me a PM
Cheers mate, How much would an accountant charge?
…
It might be worth checking the companies status on here;