Unincorporated and Company Compliance
Tax-year basis, partnership and sole-trader obligations, accounting periods, close companies and CTSA.
How to study the ATT Qualification
Use Finance Act 2025 for the 2026 tax papers, complete the three foundational CBEs early, apply professional ethics throughout and concentrate option practice on the one paper you will enter.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Unincorporated compliance follows the owner, business records and tax-year basis.
Exam cue: Identify entity, period and return before calculating.
Concept 2
Companies require accounting-period, taxable-profit, return and payment analysis.
Exam cue: Separate business liability from owner liability.
Concept 3
Close-company rules can create additional consequences for owner transactions.
Exam cue: Check close-company status and participator transactions.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Using company deadlines for a sole trader.
Guardrail: Do not use an obsolete tax rate, assume a relief, ignore legal form, submit unsupported information or omit the relevant deadline and ethical response.
Treating drawings as a deductible business expense.
Guardrail: Do not use an obsolete tax rate, assume a relief, ignore legal form, submit unsupported information or omit the relevant deadline and ethical response.
Ignoring a close-company charge or reporting issue.
Guardrail: Do not use an obsolete tax rate, assume a relief, ignore legal form, submit unsupported information or omit the relevant deadline and ethical response.
Memory anchors
Entity map
Sole trader, partnership and company have different compliance routes.
Tax-year basis
Allocate unincorporated profits under current tax-year rules.
Accounting period
A company return follows its corporation tax accounting period.
Close company
Identify control and transactions with participators.
Owner versus entity
Keep liabilities, payments and benefits with the correct taxpayer.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
A sole trader files a self-assessment return after the statutory deadline even though no tax is due. What risk remains?
A company has a 31 December year end. Why must filing and payment dates be considered separately?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
What is Pass Harbor?
Completely free exam prep for 247 UK exams.
- Practice questions
- Flashcards
- Study guides
- Mock exams
- No registration
- No paywall
- Start instantly
“No more expensive exam prep. Quality study tools should be accessible to everyone.”