As of September 2026, the tax rules applying to limited companies and their directors are known. Future government policy can still change, but your priority is not to guess what might be announced. What you can do is focus on current numbers, upcoming liabilities and decisions that could affect both company and personal finances.

When directors ask what they should review before any autumn tax changes, the honest answer is: start with where you actually stand. Year-to-date profit, forecast annual profit, available cash, debtors, creditors and upcoming tax liabilities together give a more useful picture than the bank balance alone. Get those figures reliable first. Everything else follows from them.

Accounting profit is an important starting point, but it is not the same as taxable profit. You need to consider income and expenditure for the remaining part of the accounting period, along with items that receive different tax treatment — capital expenditure, some business expenses and available reliefs among them.

Corporation Tax needs to be considered well before the return is due. Under the current rules, the small profits rate is 19% for companies with profits of £50,000 or less, and the main rate is 25% for profits above £250,000. Marginal Relief can apply between those levels. The thresholds may also be reduced where there are associated companies or a short accounting period — full details are in the HMRC Corporation Tax rates guidance.

A profitable business can still have a cash-flow problem, and that distinction matters. Part of the bank balance may already be committed to Corporation Tax, VAT, PAYE and National Insurance, supplier payments, loan repayments, and salaries. A company might show £80,000 in its account while a VAT payment, payroll run and Corporation Tax liability are all approaching. Treating the full balance as available cash creates pressure later.

A rolling cash-flow forecast maps when money is expected to arrive against when liabilities actually need to be paid. If you want to make Corporation Tax part of your ongoing cash forecast rather than a year-end surprise, our Corporation Tax returns service can help you build that into your planning.

Companies around the Corporation Tax thresholds deserve particular attention, but £50,000 and £250,000 are not simple cliff edges. Marginal Relief applies between the two figures, and the calculation can be further affected by associated companies — so a company that looks comfortably below the main rate may be closer to it than expected.

Forecasting becomes especially valuable when profit is changing quickly. A company might expect £45,000 of profit at the start of the year and find itself significantly above that after a strong final quarter. The tax forecast should move with the business, not sit static from April.

The following figures are worth keeping in one place:

If your performance is ahead of or behind the original budget, the forecast needs to reflect that. A budget is only useful if it is updated when circumstances change.

Payroll should be reviewed as a total business cost, not simply the salaries in employment contracts. For 2026/27, the standard employer National Insurance rate is 15% above the £5,000 annual Secondary Threshold for most employees. Eligible employers may be able to reduce that bill through Employment Allowance, which is up to £10,500 for 2026/27. Current rates and eligibility are set out in HMRC's 2026/27 employer rates and thresholds.

When preparing an autumn forecast, you should factor in proposed recruitment, bonuses, salary increases and benefits alongside headline wages. A planned £45,000 hire, for example, is not simply £45,000 — employer National Insurance, pension costs and recruitment fees all feed into the real monthly cash effect, which you then need to compare against expected additional revenue or capacity.

The same principle applies to any significant financial decision: model it before committing. That could include recruiting another employee, increasing salaries, purchasing equipment, taking a larger dividend, making a pension contribution, borrowing additional funds, or repaying existing borrowing early. Each of these has cash-flow, tax and sometimes personal-tax consequences that are easier to assess before the transaction than after.

Capital expenditure deserves the same treatment. If equipment or software genuinely supports the business, its timing and tax treatment are worth reviewing. Spending £10,000 solely to obtain tax relief still means spending £10,000, so commercial sense should take priority over the tax saving.

Annual accounts are primarily historical. Management accounts let you see what is happening during the year and adjust plans while there is still time to act. A useful set can include monthly or quarterly profit and loss, balance sheet movements, cash-flow information, gross and net margins, performance against budget, relevant business KPIs and updated forecasts.

This is particularly useful when costs, sales or margins are shifting. If gross margin has fallen for three consecutive months, identifying that now is far preferable to discovering it when the statutory accounts are prepared.

Scenario planning sits alongside this. You do not need to know what the government will do to make it worthwhile — you can model what happens if employment costs rise, trading is weaker than expected, a large customer pays late or a proposed investment is delayed. A base case, a cautious case with lower sales or slower collections, and a growth case involving further hiring or investment will show the effect on profit, tax and closing cash under each outcome.

The point of having current figures is that you can respond to a confirmed change quickly. A business with up-to-date records can model the practical impact within days. One that first needs several months of bookkeeping brought up to date cannot. Our management accounts service combines regular reporting with cash-flow forecasting and scenario modelling, so decisions are based on current figures rather than last year's results.

Year-end planning works best when you look at the company and your personal position together. Salary, dividends, pension contributions, company profit and personal tax interact, so examining any one item in isolation can produce a misleading picture.

Dividends require particular care: they must be supported by sufficient distributable profits. The amount in the company bank account does not, by itself, determine how much can be paid as a dividend. You should review what has already been paid and what is planned for the rest of the tax year, and you should also consider your wider income — the personal tax treatment of additional dividends depends on your overall position for that year. Applying a standard salary-and-dividend formula without checking the underlying circumstances can produce the wrong answer.

Additional salary or dividends may also affect your Income Tax position, Personal Allowance and other areas of personal tax planning. Property income, savings and income from another employment may be relevant too. A company-level decision sometimes needs testing against expected total income for the tax year before money is withdrawn.

Pension contributions can form part of this discussion, but they are worth considering alongside commercial and personal objectives rather than purely as a tax-reduction mechanism. Available cash, your pension position, applicable allowances and your wider remuneration strategy all bear on the decision. Starting that conversation early enough to check the rules and complete any contribution correctly matters more than the contribution itself.

Director's loan accounts are also worth reviewing before year-end. You should know whether you owe money to the company, whether the company owes money to you, and how any withdrawals have been treated during the year. Where an overdrawn director's loan account remains outstanding, company and personal tax consequences can arise depending on the circumstances and timing — much easier to resolve before year-end than after the accounts are finalised.