Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

11. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he plans to defer the latest date for filing returns to the Companies Registration Office due to the difficulties businesses and accountants have had due to Covid-19 restrictions in which many of their staff are working remotely and also where response times from departments and State agencies are often delayed also affecting the ability of businesses and their accountants to access necessary information for returns; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41859/21]

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Registrar of Companies is a statutory role and the Registrar has administrative independence in the exercise of this function.

Under company law, companies have an annual return date 9 months after the end of their financial year. They then have a further 56 days in which to complete their filing with the Companies Registration Office. As a consequence, annual returns are filed on an ongoing basis throughout the year. However, a significant number of companies have a financial year end of 31^stDecember, a resulting annual return date (ARD) of 30^thSeptember the following year and a deadline of 25^thNovember by which the filing of the annual return must be completed with the CRO.

Since March 2020, the Registrar of Companies has taken a number of decisions in relation to the filing of annual returns, in recognition of the additional challenges facing some companies and their professional advisers in meeting filing obligations during the Covid-19 period. These exceptional arrangements are at an end and normal timeframes now apply in relation to filing.

The filing of annual returns has continued throughout the period of Covid-19 related disruption, with particularly heavy volumes in the run up to the filing deadlines last October and more recently at end May/early June. A new IT system was also introduced in December 2020, which includes a more streamlined online process for filing annual returns and eliminates the need to deliver hardcopy material to the CRO. I understand that over 155,000 annual returns have been filed with the CRO so far this year.

I understand that the Registrar of Companies is not planning any further extension of filing deadlines given the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, the ongoing level of successful filing and the importance of having an up-to-date Register for those stakeholders who regularly access company filings.