Take steps to recover overpaid corporation tax

Businesses overpaid £11.9bn in corporation tax in 2022 says UHY Hacker Young after obtaining the data from HMRC in a freedom of information request.

However HMRC will not automatically refund overpaid corporation tax so companies must reclaim any overpayment themselves.

Nikhil Oza corporate tax director at UHY Hacker Young said: ‘Overpayment of corporation tax is a multi-billion-pound problem. Most large corporates spot overpayments or at least have good tax advisers which do the checking for them but small companies without dedicated tax advice can lose out on thousands in overpaid tax if they don’t look out for the problem.

‘HMRC won’t tell a business that it is overpaying corporation tax they don’t see it as their job and the money will simply sit in HMRC’s account earning a very low rate of interest. Businesses need to take the initiative...