SAOG13200 - Notifying Senior Accounting Officer Details to HMRC: what must the qualifying company notify

A company must notify HMRC of the name of any person or persons acting as its Senior Accounting Officer (SAO) for each financial year for which it is a qualifying company, see SAOG11000.

There is no set form of notification. However, the company must provide written details to HMRC of

  • the financial year to which the notification relates
  • the name of the person who was or persons who were its SAO in the financial year
  • the period within the financial year in which they were the SAO
  • sufficient information to allow HMRC to contact that person or persons
  • the company/ companies for which the SAO was acting.

Where the same person has acted as SAO for more than one UK company within the same group, one notification can cover all of those companies. It must include a list of all the companies for which the named person has acted as SAO in the financial year.

HMRC expects that a company in administration or liquidation will still be in a position to notify its SAO details to HMRC. If it fails to do so, or claims that it cannot do so, see SAOG16300 and SAOG16400.

The notification is for the particular financial year. The company does not need to notify HMRC about any change of SAO after the year end. That will be the subject of a notification for the subsequent year, if one is appropriate. We would expect such a change in the situation to be discussed as part of the normal communication between a company and the HMRC Customer Compliance Manager (CCM) or the Mid-sized Business Customer Engagement Team (CET).

It is possible that an SAO who has not yet been notified to HMRC may submit a certificate, see SAOG15000. It is likely in such a case that the CCM or CET will want to informally check that this is correct and so companies may wish to pre-empt this by explaining that the SAO has changed (but this will not be a formal notification).

There is no requirement for a company to tell HMRC that it is not a qualifying company for a financial year, even if it has been one in a preceding financial year. Again, we would expect such a change in the situation to be discussed as part of the normal communication between a company and the CCM or CET.

FA09/SCH46/PARA3