With just over three weeks until the end of the 2025/26 tax year, the inbox gets heavier and the calendar gets tighter. Everyone’s focused on closing the books, auditors want their information, and the tax team needs decisions made. But between the chaos, there’s a narrow window where smart CFOs lock in real tax savings.
Here’s what matters right now.
1. Review Your Dividend Extraction Strategy
If your company has carried forward profits, this is the moment to think clearly about extraction. Dividends declared before 5 April count as 2025/26 income, not 2026/27. That matters.
The maths is straightforward: take the after-tax profit you want to extract, check your shareholders’ personal positions (are any at higher rate tax? What’s their dividend allowance status?), and model whether a dividend is more efficient than salary or bonus. You might find a combination works better. A £50,000 bonus to a spouse on lower income can be more efficient than a dividend to both shareholders equally.
The trap: leaving dividends until after April 5th forces them into next year, which complicates cash flow planning and might push someone into a higher tax bracket. Decide now.
2. Maximise Capital Allowances (If You Haven’t Already)
If you’ve bought plant and machinery in the last 12 months, capital allowances can turn equipment costs into tax-deductible items. A company that’s bought £100,000 in plant without claiming allowances is sitting on tax relief worth around £25,000 (at 25% corporation tax) that it’s leaving on the table.
Machinery, computer equipment, fixtures and fittings that are integral to the business’s operation — these qualify. Integral features like air conditioning or electrical systems on commercial properties now qualify as plant (a change that benefits many businesses).
The complication: HMRC is particular about what counts as plant, and you need to get the definition right for your specific assets. This isn’t something to guess on. If you’ve spent significantly on equipment or property improvements, get specialist advice before 5 April.
3. Claim All Available Reliefs: R&D, Innovation, Patent Box
R&D relief remains one of the most underused tax breaks. If your company has spent money on developing new products, processes, or technologies — even if that work didn’t succeed — it likely qualifies. Software development, product iteration, process improvements — all of these can trigger R&D relief worth 14-24% of qualifying expenditure depending on your structure.
Patent box relief applies if you’ve got registered patents or other qualifying IP. The calculation is technical (notional interest, nexus adjustments), but the saving can be substantial.
The window is tight: you can claim R&D relief up to four years after the tax year-end (so you’ve got time), but you’ll want your records straight and your qualifying activities documented now. Don’t wait to pull this together in July.
4. Manage Your Trading Losses and Carry-Forward Position
If you’re loss-making, you have choices. Losses can be carried backward to offset previous year’s profits (with restrictions), carried forward indefinitely to offset future profits, or in certain circumstances claimed against other income. Which route you take depends on your cashflow position and profit forecast.
A company that was profitable in 2024/25 and is loss-making in 2025/26 might carry the loss back to recover tax paid last year. A company expecting strong recovery profits in the next two years might carry losses forward to shield that income.
The math here is about timing. A £50,000 loss claimed against this year’s corporation tax (if you were profitable before) recovers cash now. That same loss carried forward saves cash in a future year. Sometimes the present value of immediate cash recovery beats waiting.
5. Get Your Transfer Pricing Documentation Sorted
If your company has related-party transactions — intercompany charges, management fees, loans between group companies — you need contemporaneous transfer pricing documentation. HMRC now expects this level of detail. Transfer pricing that’s wrong, even unintentionally, can result in adjustments plus interest.
The most common issue: there’s no clear rationale for pricing internal transactions. The parent company supplies materials to the subsidiary at cost-plus-10%, but that margin isn’t documented or justified. Or there’s an intercompany loan at 3% when bank rates were 6%.
You don’t need elaborate economic reports for small related-party transactions, but you do need to be able to show that the price you’ve set is commercially reasonable. Document it now.
What Not to Do
Don’t artificially accelerate or defer income to game the tax year. That’s aggressive and creates compliance risk. Don’t claim reliefs you’re not confident about without advice; being wrong costs more in penalties than you save in relief. And don’t make extraction or pension decisions based only on tax without thinking about cash and business strategy.
The Last Week Matters
By late March, most CFOs are focused on audit work and financial statements. Tax planning can feel secondary. It’s not. Three weeks is enough time to review your position, get specialist advice on the gaps, and execute decisions that’ll save thousands in tax.
If you’ve got questions about where your company stands, or if you’re unsure whether you’ve claimed everything you should have, now’s the moment to check. Reaching out to a tax adviser in late April is too late.
Want a second opinion on your tax position before the year-end crunch? Get in touch. I help CFOs and finance teams spot tax-saving opportunities and make decisions with confidence. Contact me.