Before your December year end: four tax areas to review

If your company has a 31 December year end, the months leading up to it are a useful time to review your tax position.

This year, there are two areas in particular to consider: whether there are opportunities from 2024 that still need to be acted on, and whether you are properly capturing the activity and expenditure taking place during 2026.

1 | Look back before the window closes

For some tax reliefs and incentives, 31 December 2026 could mark an important deadline for companies with a 31 December year end.

Depending on your circumstances, this could include:

✓  making or amending an R&D Tax Relief claim for the year ended 31 December 2024;

✓  electing into Patent Box for qualifying profits generated during 2024;

✓  reviewing potentially missed Capital Allowances relating to earlier investment;

✓  claiming or making relevant elections for qualifying Land Remediation Relief expenditure.

The rules and deadlines vary between each relief, so not every deadline will apply to every company. However, if you have not reviewed your 2024 position, doing so now gives you time to identify any potential opportunities and take action before the relevant window closes.

For many businesses, the immediate priority right now is finishing the accounts and Corporation Tax Return for the year just ended: 31 December 2025. Statutory accounts (and any required audit) are typically due by 30 September 2026, with the Company Tax Return due by 31 December 2026. It is worth checking that Capital Allowances, R&D Tax Relief, Patent Box and Land Remediation Relief have all been fully and correctly captured within that return before turning attention to the two areas below.

2 | Look forward before the books close

Your approaching year end is also an opportunity to review what has happened during 2026. Identifying qualifying activity and expenditure while projects are still recent can make the subsequent claim process easier and help ensure the right information is being captured.

Depending on your business, this could mean reviewing:

»  R&D Tax Relief
What R&D projects have you undertaken during 2026? Are the relevant technical and financial records in place, and have you identified the people who can explain the work undertaken?

»  Patent Box
If you own or exclusively license qualifying patents, are you identifying the income generated from that IP and tracking the relevant R&D expenditure? If you have developed new technology, have you also considered whether any of it could be patentable?

»  Capital Allowances
What investment have you made in property, plant, machinery or equipment during 2026? Have all potentially qualifying assets and expenditure been identified and reviewed?

»  Land Remediation Relief
For companies undertaking qualifying land and property projects, have remediation costs incurred during 2026 been identified and recorded correctly? Have previous projects also been checked for potentially overlooked expenditure?

3 | Your December year-end review

The end of the accounting period is not the deadline for every claim. In many cases, companies will have additional time to prepare and submit the relevant information.

However, waiting until a claim deadline approaches can mean trying to reconstruct projects, expenditure and decisions months or even years after they took place. It can also mean missing retrospective opportunities where a statutory deadline has already passed.

For companies with a 31 December year end, the months ahead provide an opportunity to do both:

→  Look back: Check whether there are any 2024 claims, elections or amendments that need to be made before the relevant window closes.

→  Look forward: Review your 2026 activity and make sure qualifying projects, expenditure, IP and investment are being properly identified and documented before the books close.

Over the coming weeks, we will look at R&D Tax Relief, Patent Box, Capital Allowances and Land Remediation Relief in more detail, including the deadlines to be aware of and practical checklists to help you prepare.

If you have a 31 December year end and have any questions about the deadlines that may apply to your business, get in touch with the ABGi team and we will be happy to help.