HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) free Corporation Tax online filing software is aimed at small companies and organisations with straightforward Corporation Tax affairs.
This guide will help you decide if you can use the software or if you need to consider another option. You'll also find links to further guidance on using the online filing software, appointing a tax agent or adviser to submit your return for you, and tax help to complete your Company Tax Return.
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HMRC's free Corporation Tax online filing software - which is a downloadable PDF - can be used by most small companies and organisations (or their tax agents and advisers) to submit their Company Tax Return to HMRC, for accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2008.
You can use HMRC's software to send the following information:
You won't be able to use HMRC's software if any of the following apply:
After you've downloaded HMRC's online filing software, you'll need to change some computer settings on Adobe Reader to allow you to use all the features of the software and send your data safely to HMRC.
Read HMRC guidance on changing settings on Adobe Reader
If you can't use HMRC's software, you can appoint a tax agent or adviser to submit your return online for you, or use commercial software.
Appointing someone to deal with your Corporation Tax affairs
Using commercial software to submit an online Company Tax Return
HMRC's accounts and computations templates are specially formatted so that you don't need to worry about sending this information in the right format - Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (iXBRL). This is done for you automatically. If you don't want to use HMRC's templates, you can attach your own accounts and computations.
For most companies, the accounts file you attach must be in iXBRL format, but the majority of unincorporated organisations may use PDF format. Computations must always be in iXBRL format.
The accounts template also includes a joint filing option to submit your statutory accounts information to HMRC (as part of your Company Tax Return) and statutory, abbreviated or dormant accounts to Companies House.
Please note: you can't enter information on the online CT600 (Short) return form that you have not entered on the computations template. If you attempt to do so you'll be prompted to attach your computations separately.
You can also attach other relevant items that are required as part of your return, for example claims or elections, reports or statements. These attachments must be in PDF format. The maximum size for combined attachments is 5MB.
You can use HMRC's accounts template to submit your statutory accounts information (prepared under the Companies Act 2006) to HMRC for accounting periods starting on or after 6 April 2008. The template automatically submits your data in the right format - iXBRL.
You can print your accounts information so that you can check and approve the entries before submitting your accounts online as part of your Company Tax Return.
The HMRC accounts template, like the online CT600 (Short) return form, is aimed at small companies and organisations with straightforward affairs - that is those with fewer than 12 directors at any one period of time. But you can't use HMRC's template if you need to report any of the following:
When you've entered your accounts data, the template will produce:
Please note: the detailed profit and loss account (sometimes known as the 'trading account and expenses') is not included in the accounts template, but it is available in the computations template that's covered in a later section of this guide.
View a demonstration of the HMRC accounts template
You can use the accounts data you've entered on the HMRC accounts template to make a separate submission of your statutory, abbreviated or dormant accounts to Companies House.
This is an optional addition to HMRC's online filing software. If you prefer, you can still submit your accounts to Companies House direct, using other options available from the Companies House WebFiling service, and just use the accounts template to submit them to HMRC as part of your Company Tax Return.
In addition to the items listed in the previous section, you can't use the 'joint filing' facility of the HMRC template to submit accounts to Companies House if the following applies:
Log in to your Companies House online account (Opens new window)
Read more about the company accounts joint filing service
The HMRC computations template uses your figures to automatically calculate totals and consequential figures and pre-fills most of the CT600 (Short) return form for you. This helps ensure arithmetical accuracy.
To use the computations template you must:
You can enter the following information on the computations template:
You can't use the computations template if you need to include any of the following:
View a demonstration of the HMRC computations template
Completing and filing your Company Tax Return
