Your year end is unique to your company. Unlike personal tax planning, which revolves around 5 April, your company's planning window closes on its own accounting year end date. This guide covers the decisions to make in the two to three months before that date — and the deadlines that follow it.
The weeks before your company's year end are the single most valuable planning window of the whole accounting cycle. Almost every meaningful decision — pension contributions, equipment purchases, dividend timing, salary levels, staff benefits — only reduces this year's corporation tax bill if it is actioned before the year end date. Once your year end passes, the accounts are what they are.
Yet in practice, many company directors only think about their year end when the accounts are being prepared, months after the date has passed. By then, the opportunity to save tax in that year has gone. Effective year end planning means sitting down two to three months before the date, reviewing profits, and making deliberate decisions while there is still time to act.
This guide walks through the key areas we review with clients before every company year end: profit extraction, family employment, benefits, premises and vehicle costs, capital spending, reliefs, pensions and longer-term structuring — plus the filing and payment deadlines that follow. If you want the one-page version, our free Company Year End Checklist covers the same ground in an interactive format.