COM23100 - Assessing: CTSA assessments: manual assessments

COTAX is used to record the ‘tax’ charge comprising mainstream CT and amounts under S455 CTA 2010 (close company loans and arrangements to confer benefits on participators) and S747 ICTA 1988 (controlled foreign companies), that are assessable or chargeable as if they were corporation tax. This includes revenue determinations, self assessments and all other types of COTAX assessing output (Word 46KB).

You cannot use COTAX to record other assessment types, for example, to recover excessive repayments or excessive group relief. The processing does not recognise those charges and cannot issue appropriate printed output. See COM23130 and COM23132, which explain how to handle non-COTAX charges.

If, exceptionally, COTAX is unavailable and you have to make an assessment urgently, issue the notice of assessment manually and record it on COTAX later.

You prepare a manual assessment using a SEES assessment set. You can get the SEES 310(Z) assessment set at Excel > SEES > Forms and Letters > under the ‘SAFE’ category and then enter the charge on COTAX when it becomes available, not SAFE.

When you use function RAMA (Record / Amend Assessment) to update the COTAX record with the details of the assessment, you must indicate that you have issued it manually to stop COTAX issuing assessing output.

COTAX then:

• retains the details of the manual assessment on the company record
• records, updates or contras the relevant postings, as if it had made the assessment.

See COM23012 for a list of functions to use in particular situations.