Wow, what a whirlwind these last few months have been! We have been busy assisting our clients with the various Coronavirus support mechanisms, one of which was the ability for a company to apply for a 3 month extension to their company accounts filing deadline. While these were granted automatically if Coronavirus was a factor in the request, it had to be applied for.
However, as anyone who has been following the governmental guidance will know, things change frequently! One such change was the introduction of the Companies etc. (Filing Requirements) (Temporary Modifications) Regulations 2020. What a name, eh?
In the main, these regulations formalise and automatically apply the above extension to most corporate entities, with no need to apply for it.
In respect of accounts, every company and LLP will receive an automatic 3 month filing extension if the original filing deadline for that organisation fell between 27 June 2020 to 5 April 2021 inclusive.
For example, a private company with a 31 December 2019 would ordinarily have a 30 September 2020 filing deadline. This is extended to 31 December 2020.
While this may be a welcome relief to some, I have a word of caution. Credit agencies often tap into published accounts for ratings purposes. Where information in the public domain is old it can have an undesirable negative impact on credit worthiness, the risk of which needs to be considered.
The new regulations also bring some other temporary filing relaxation in areas as follows:
- Confirmation statements, with the standard 14 day filing deadline being extended to 42 days for all companies, LLP’s, and some Scottish partnerships. This applies to confirmation statements with a review period ending up to and including 5 April 2021.
- The filing deadline for certain other event driven filings have also been increased to 42 days, where the original filing deadline falls on or before 5 April 2021.
- And finally, the period allowed to deliver particulars of a mortgage charge held against a company/LLP has been increased by 10 days to 31 days (unless otherwise ordered by a court).
This article originally appeared in Wiltshire Business.