The Companies Registration Office has warned that non-compliant annual returns will not be physically sent back to the presenter.

Instead, a mail notification of non-compliance and an instruction to re-upload financial statements will be issued. 

The B1 form must also be re-submitted and a new signature page be re-delivered to the CRO within 14 days. 

Rejected

B1s are automatically rejected where the B1 signature page or overall certificate is not signed or only has one signature. 

A new annual return must be captured, financial statements uploaded and a new signed signature page delivered to the CRO. Where this new annual return is more than 28 days after the company's annual return date, the B1 form is late.

Financial statements must be uploaded prior to sending in a signed signature page/patch page to the CRO. 

If a signature page/patch page is received and there are no financial statements uploaded then this annual return is rejected.

Companies are not given 14 days to upload the financial statements.

The filing fee for an e-B1 is €20 and is non-refundable if paid by credit card as the CRO cannot store card details.

Payment by customer account will not be deducted until the signature page is received and processed.

Penalties

Late filing penalties apply and, where applicable, the company also loses its entitlement to claim audit exemption in the following two years. 

The CRO has also said it regularly receives calls from presenters who miss their annual return filing deadline because they encountered technical problems with electronic uploads or there were postal delays.

Consequences

In light of the very serious consequences of late filing, such as late penalties and loss of future audit exemption, the CRO has asked for prompt filing and use of a time guaranteed delivery service which provides proof of delivery.