Setting Up In The UK: Corporation Tax

Paul BeareFounder, Paul Beare Ltd

The responsibility for correctly calculating the UK corporation tax liability falls on business directors, irrespective of whether they are based in the UK or overseas. 

Corporation tax is an amount that limited companies must pay to HMRC on all taxable trading profits. It could be referred to as income tax. It is also known as a CT600. It is set at a flat rate of 19% for most UK company’s. All limited companies and non-profit organisations that are trading in the UK must pay corporation tax on all forms of taxable income. 

“The tax credit system in the UK is far superior to the Australian system and is much more dare I say understanding and/or forgiving. For example, we recently reopened a client’s 2018 corporate tax return. They had commissioned a third party to produce an R&D report and that third party had charged them a percentage of their refund. We found a few errors in it so we revised up their claim and £25,000 is currently being returned to them. £25,000 to start any sort of business off in the UK is obviously phenomenal, that’s someone’s salary but the client was very happy. We charged her an hourly rate for that and didn’t charge a percentage.” 

A UK company tax return is typically made up of a number of items: 

  • Form CT600 which must be signed by an authorised signatory; director, company secretary or authorised tax representative 
  • The Company accounts, known as statutory accounts. These are the accounts the company must prepare for its members under the Companies Act, including directors’ reports and, if applicable, auditor’s reports 
  • Separate computations and/or calculations showing how figures on the CT600 have produced 
  • Supplementary pages to the CT600 where required. 

Companies can also benefit from the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and/or  Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), which aims to boost investment in small start-ups by offering income tax relief on the shares bought through crowdfunding websites. If companies have this certificate then you can promote this on certain crowdfunding websites which makes you more attractive for local investment in the UK. Paul mentions, “there are websites such as Crowd Key, for example, where you take a look at the website, it’ll have different companies it’s funding, how long the funding run is going for and it will specify whether they are SEIS or EIS compliant.” 

We can help to minimise corporate tax exposure and relieve the administrative burden of compliance with the current tax legislation. Please do  get in touch to discuss in more detail.