Extending the year end

leeGrant77

Is the maximum that a limited company can extend it accounting year 6 months? Got year end of November but its looking very advantages to stretch that to May 31st

CSan89

You can only extend the period to a max of 18 months (so 6months is correct). However, this can only be done once within 5 years, so make sure the advantages are on point.

Here is the link to HMRC https://www.gov.uk/change-your-companys-year-end

KoopaCooper

CSan89 said:

You can only extend the period to a max of 18 months (so 6months is correct). However, this can only be done once within 5 years, so make sure the advantages are on point.

Here is the link to HMRC https://www.gov.uk/change-your-companys-year-end

In this case you would be looking to extend the company's accounting period by 6 months, which is fine. However if you then found out that it wasn't as advantageous as you'd thought, you wouldn't be able to extend it again to change to another period.

HOWEVER

Saying that, you can shorten the accounting period any time you like, as often as you like.

So if you extended the period to 31 May and then found it didn't really help after all, you could always shorten the next period to 6 months and thus return to your original 30 Nov year-end (albeit by producing 6-month set of accounts)

CSan89

@KoopaCooper Good point, didn't think of that.

However professionally you would want to get it right first time.

KoopaCooper

CSan89 said:

@KoopaCooper Good point, didn't think of that.

However professionally you would want to get it right first time.

Naturally. However sometimes it doesn't matter how thorough you examine something from various angles, it can still end up going pear-shaped on you down the track. xD

What's that phrase? "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry"