Who needs to file?
For corporation tax filings made on or after 1 April 2011 with HMRC, that relate to a financial year ending after 31 March 2010, all limited companies incorporated under the
Companies Act 2006, as well as certain charities and other unincorporated bodies that make a taxable profit, must file their CT600 form, their tax computations and their accounts online in Inline XBRL.
For more information about who has to file, see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ct/getting-started/intro.htm#1.
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Can I get an extra year by filing early?
Yes. If you are a company whose annual accounts would normally be prepared after 1 April 2011 and you can prepare them before that time, then you can continue to file them on paper. If your balance date is June, September or December then this may well be possible for you and you should talk to your professional advisers about whether you can accelerate your normal filing in order to delay this new requirement from HMRC by 12 months.
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I'm a charity. Do I need to file?
Most charities do not pay corporation tax and so do not have to file a CT600 tax return. A charity which does need to file a CT return may be able to use the free HMRC product.
Unincorporated charities, clubs and associations who do not prepare statutory accounts under the Companies Act can continue to send their
accounts in PDF format, although the tax computations must be submitted in iXBRL format.
The HMRC free filing product covers the short form CT600 tax return and the supplementary CT600E for Charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs. For more information, take a look at the following pages:
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What about additional information that I would normally provide to the Revenue as an attachment or a letter?
Additional information may still be submitted in PDF format. This could be explanations for certain anomalies inside the accounts; it could also be certain types of claims such as Section 419 claims or R&D claims, as there is no way currently of filing that information with Inline iXBRL.
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I'm a specialised company such as a general insurer. The UK GAAP taxonomy doesn't seem to cover my circumstances. Do I still need to file in Inline XBRL?
Yes. However you only have to file those facts that are covered by the minimum tagging requirements published by HMRC. For general insurers and other specialised corporations, this might be a very minimal tagging set indeed, although you should continue to monitor the situation as it's perfectly possible that HMRC will develop a specialised extension taxonomy for your circumstances.
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How do I file my Inline XBRL document?
Today tax and filing packages allow you to attach a PDF version of the accounts to the filing. For Inline XBRL filing, the same tax software that produces the CT600 form and, in most cases, the computation schedules, will allow the inclusion of one or more iXBRL documents per filing, for provision to the Revenue.
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What if I file using IFRS instead of UK GAAP?
You can use either, but you will still be required to produce an Inline XBRL document.
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What if I produce my accounts in accordance with a foreign GAAP?
At one of the ICAEW "Demystifying XBRL" roadshows, HMRC said that they expect to publish a list of the taxonomies against which they will accept data, which
will include US GAAP.
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What about "the glossies"?
Companies Act 2006 requires the directors of all companies to prepare "individual accounts". It is these "individual accounts" that HMRC is entitled to receive as part of a Company Tax Return and they must be filed online (from 1 April 2011*) in iXBRL format. In the case of the parent company (or sub-parent company) in a group, consolidated accounts may also be prepared. If the parent company would like to submit "the glossies" as supplementary information to accompany the individual iXBRL accounts then they may continue to do so in PDF format**.
* For accounting periods ending on or after 1 April 2010
** The consolidated accounts may also be filed in the same iXBRL document as the company's individual accounts. The detail of the individual accounts must be identifiable and appropriately tagged. The consolidated accounts - which will be in (X)HTML format to 'conform' with iXBRL - may or may not be tagged.
If the company chooses to tag the consolidated accounts then it should do so using the Consolidated Dimension from the appropriate taxonomy.
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