ANNUAL RETURN DATE MISMATCH

Be very careful as currently the Annual Return Date for your company does not match the Annual Return Date given on the Companies Registration Office (CRO) website. Confused – you should be!

The Annual Return Date (ARD) of a company is the date up to which a company provides corporate information on itself as at a particular date year. A bit like a corporate snapshot.

Previously the CRO always gave the actual ARD for each company. Unfortunately, since the implementation of its new digital platform the CRO website is now showing the filing deadline date as if it was the actual ARD.

Let’s pretend your company’s ARD is 01.01.2021 that would give it 56 days in which to electronically file everything bringing it to 26.02.2021. Your company’s ARD is 01.01.2021 but the CRO are showing it as 26.02.2021 which is actually the filing deadline date.  

Hopefully, this mismatch will be short term as the CRO continues to resolve teething problems surrounding its new system. In the meantime, take care. Failure to file the Annual Return (and accompanying financial statements and signature page) carries, at a minimum, the imposition of a late filing fee and loss of audit exemption.

The Registrar of the Companies Registration Office has made an unexpected decision to extend the current filing deadline for Annual Returns from 25^th November to 9^th December.

The decision to extend the deadline was in recognition of the difficulties experienced by some accountancy firms in meeting the 25^th November deadline resulting from the evolving Covid-19 situation.

The extension is a welcome and practical recognition of the difficulties faced by so many of us as we all continue to juggle the practicalities of working in an ever-changing office / home / hybrid environment.