Last updated: 21 Oct 2024 01:00 Posted in:
Companies House has issued a new penalty regime, in line with the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.
It means registered companies must adhere to their filing responsibilities or face penalties, as part of a crackdown on misuse of the company register.
Business owners must file annual accounts and confirmation statements within their designated 12-month period, starting from the first time accounts and statement submissions are made.
Companies House also considers ignoring any communication about filing (i.e. default notices to file) as non-compliance. For example, if a company misses the filing deadline by two months and subsequently ignores any communications from Companies House prompting them to file, they are non-compliant and will face a penalty.
The new regime is based on a a risk-based approach to enforcing any breaches of company law, which categorises the level of non-compliance with an appropriate level of penalty. The levels are:
• Level one – Complaint: where the company always files on time or early, particularly when updating Companies House about changes. There is no penalty for this.
• Level two – Complaint with Support: where the company occasionally misses the filing deadline but has a complete history. When prompted they file and update records. This will incur a penalty and the issuing of default statutory notices.
• Level three – Disregard for Compliance: where the company fails to comply with most deadlines, and makes errors in filing. However, will complete filing when compelled to do so. This will incur Companies House using their querying powers to look into this organisation, as well as a court order.
• Level four – Non-compliant: where the company pays little to no attention to communications from Companies House, regularly files late, and has significant gaps in their filing history and a pattern of inaccurate filings. This can lead to prosecution, financial penalties or being struck off the register.
• Level five – Seriously and Severely non-compliant: where the company ignores communications from Companies House, disregards filing obligations, has a history of late filing and has a pattern of non-compliance across multiple company records. This will incur a case-by-case penalty and other sanctions.
