Who are Companies House and HMRC, in plain words?
They sound similar and people mix them up all the time, but they do two different jobs.
Companies House runs the official public list of every company in the UK. When you set your company up, this is who you registered with. Its job is to hold the basic facts about your company, who runs it, who owns it, where it's based, and a yearly snapshot of its finances, and put them on a record anyone can look up.
HMRC is the tax office. Its job is to collect the tax your company owes. It wants to see your figures for the year and the Corporation Tax that comes out of them.
So one keeps the public record of your company. The other collects your tax. You deal with both, every year.
What do I send to each one?
Here is the whole thing on one page. Three jobs, split across the two bodies:
| Companies House | HMRC | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The public register of UK companies | The tax office |
| What you send | Your yearly accounts (a summary of what your company owns, owes and earned) and a yearly confirmation statement (a quick check that your company's basic details are correct) | Your tax return (your figures for the year, plus your accounts, plus the working-out behind your tax) |
| What it's for | Keeping the public record up to date | Working out and collecting your Corporation Tax |
| When it's due | Accounts: 9 months after your year-end (your first accounts get longer, 21 months after you registered the company) | Tax return: 12 months after your year-end. You pay the tax earlier, by 9 months and 1 day after your year-end |
| Do you pay anything? | No tax here. The confirmation statement has a small filing fee (£50 online) | Yes, this is where you pay your Corporation Tax |
A lot of the numbers are the same on both sides, because they both come from the same year of trading. That's why people assume it's one job. It isn't. The accounts that go to Companies House go on the public record; the tax return that goes to HMRC is private and works out your bill.
Why are there two filings for the same year?
Because the two bodies want different things from the same set of figures.
Companies House wants a public summary so that anyone, a customer, a supplier, a bank, can look your company up and see it's real and roughly how it's doing. HMRC wants the full detail so it can check the tax is right. The accounts overlap, but one ends up public and one ends up working out a tax bill.
The good news: you only put your year's money in and out together once. Both filings come out of that same set of figures, which is exactly what we build for you. You don't keep two sets of books.
What's this "confirmation statement" as well?
This is the third job, and it's the one people have never heard of. It's a short yearly form you send to Companies House to confirm your company's basic details are still correct, the address, who the directors are, who owns the shares. It is not your accounts and it is not your tax return. It's just a tick to say "yes, the public record about us is right". You file it at least once a year, and it costs £50 to file online.
We don't file the confirmation statement for you, it's a separate Companies House job, but it's worth knowing it exists so it doesn't catch you out.
What happens if I miss a deadline?
Each body fines you on its own, and the two sets of fines have nothing to do with each other. Miss both and you get fined twice.
If you file your accounts late to Companies House, the fine goes up the later you are:
- Up to 1 month late: £150.
- 1 to 3 months late: £375.
- 3 to 6 months late: £750.
- More than 6 months late: £1,500.
Late two years running and Companies House doubles it.
If you file your tax return late to HMRC, that's a separate fine on a separate scale:
- 1 day late: £200.
- 3 months late: another £200, so £400 in total.
- 6 months late: HMRC works out your bill for you and adds 10% of the tax you still owe.
- 12 months late: another 10% of the tax you still owe.
File your tax return late three years in a row and those £200 fines become £1,000 each. And HMRC charges the fixed fine even if your company owes no tax at all.
The point to take away: these are two separate fines from two separate bodies. One does not cover the other.
How SimpleReturns handles both
You don't sort the two bodies yourself. We read your year's money in and out once, then prepare and send your accounts to Companies House and your tax return to HMRC, in one guided run, so you never have to remember which goes where. We show you every figure first, and we show you your exact dates. The one thing you do yourself is pay the Corporation Tax to HMRC, using the reference we give you, by the pay deadline.