Tax returns for dormant company

I set up a new company in Jan 21, did not trade, and went through the online process in Jan 22 to declare it dormant with HMRC as well as going through the re-registering process with Company House to confirm the Confirmation Statement. I have still not started trading - and so this year, in Jan 22, I again went through the Company House Confirmation Statement renewal process. But unsure about the necessity to tell HMRC again about being dormant, I attempted to access HMRC online company tax return web-site (using the Gateway Code etc supplied when setting up the company) and was booted out as "not authorized" . This would make sense if I could be sure that a dormant company, that has not told the HMRC that it has started trading, would be barred from accessing the site. I cannot find an explicit and clear statement that a dormant company does not have to file a company tax return if it has not started trading and has not been specifically asked by HMRC to file a return. Please clarify. Many Thanks

error- of course, this year is 2023

Hi,

You can see guidance on the meaning of dormant for Corporation Tax here:

Corporation Tax: trading and non-trading

If you meet the criteria, which you appear to, you do not need to file a company tax return.

As there is no direct link between Companies House and our records, we will need to manually update our records to prevent the issue of notices to file. Please contact our Corporation Tax team and we will, in most situations, be able to update our records from a telephone call.

Corporation Tax: general enquiries

The not authorised message from the Government Gateway account does not relate to the fact the company is dormant, we will only need to look at this if we are not able to note our records as dormant.  

Thank you.

 

Thank you for the guidance on phoning the corporate tax folk. I spoke to a very helpful person, who in exchange for my UTR, reassuringly confirmed that my company was recorded as dormant (having done this online last year). On explaining the background, it was confirmed that for 5 years after declaring dormancy, provided I did not trade, HMRC would list my company as dormant. If still not trading after 5 years, then another call to them to confirm dormancy should be made. During this period of dormancy, it was confirmed I do not have to fill in a company tax return and HMRC wouldn’t bug me for one – well, at least until the 5 years have elapsed. But the Company House Confirmation Statement renewal process has to be performed each year regardless. The phone call served to cement my situation with HMRC - which could have remained open-ended- if I just relied on the online registering of being dormant.