Three obligations create most exposure for a small business: the VAT return and payment within 28 days of the tax period, the corporate tax return and payment within 9 months, and records kept for 7 years. The FTA states that failing to keep required records results in administrative penalties under the relevant tax legislation.
Why there are no amounts on this page
Penalty amounts are fixed by Cabinet decisions, and those decisions are amended from time to time. We could not verify the text in force on 12 September 2026 from an official source, and this site does not repeat legal figures from secondary ones. Plenty of pages will quote you a number. Some of them are quoting a decision that has since been amended, and you have no way to tell which from the page.
Read the current amounts on the FTA's legislation page, or ask a registered tax agent to confirm what applies to your case. When we can verify the official text, the figures will appear here with their source and a checked date, like every other number on this site.
The three clocks
Chart data
| Obligation | Time limit |
|---|---|
| VAT return and payment | 28 days |
| Corporate tax return and payment | 9 months |
| Records kept after the period | 7 years |
Filing and paying are two separate failures
A return submitted on time with the money sent later is not the same event as a late return, and the legislation treats them separately. For corporate tax, both fall on the same date: 9 months from the end of the period, with payment due within 9 months. Businesses that file early and then forget to pay make this mistake more often than businesses that file late.
A nil return is still a return
This is the most common misunderstanding among small businesses that owe nothing. Electing Small Business Relief makes the tax zero, but the FTA has been explicit: relief is elected in the return. Eligible businesses register, file the simplified return by the deadline, and keep the records that let the FTA verify revenue and eligibility. Owing nothing removes the payment, not the filing.
Records are the quiet exposure
Deadlines are visible; record keeping is not, until someone asks. The FTA describes the essential documents as transactions, assets, liabilities and ownership interests, held for 7 years after the end of the period they relate to. Seven years is longer than most cloud accounting subscriptions survive in a small business, and longer than most people keep a bank login for a closed account. Export and archive at each year end rather than trusting a platform you may leave.
How to stay out of the way of all this
- Put both deadlines in a calendar the day your financial year ends, not the month before they fall.
- Close the books monthly. Every late filing starts as a late reconciliation.
- Check the tax period on your own VAT registration rather than assuming calendar quarters.
- Archive the year's records somewhere you will still control in seven years.
- If something has already been missed, take it to a registered tax agent rather than waiting for the FTA to raise it.
The corporate tax calculator shows the next filing date for any financial year end, and the deadlines guide works through the common year ends.