COM1070 | Accounting periods: company accounting periods: irregular accounting periods

A company may make up its accounts to slightly varying dates, such as to the same Saturday in each year. The average date between the earliest and latest of varying dates is a ‘mean’ date.

Where the effect of such an arrangement is that no period of account ends more than four days away from the mean date, the Company Taxation Manual at CTM01560 allows you to agree with the company to treat each account as an account for the 12 months ended on the mean date.

When no agreement is made the company has ‘irregular’ Accounting Periods (APs).

When you make a mean date agreement with a company, you must make sure they understand that when they submit a return, it should show the mean accounting date and not the date on the accounts.

You can set a signal on COTAX to show that you have agreed to treat the company in this way by:

• accessing function ACTP (Amend CT Payer Details)

• clicking on the [Other Details] button

• entering ‘Y’ in the ‘mean accounting dates’ field

See COM1021 for a list of functions to use in particular situations.