Until late 2016, HMRC would issue the following:

1. Send you a 'notice to complete a corporation tax return' just after your yearend date. E.g. Accounting Period (AP) 1-Jan-15 to 31-Dec-15, would be send early Jan 16.
2. Send you a copy of the tax liability based on the tax return I submitted, usually within ten days of the submission.
3. Send you are reminder to pay the bill a few weeks before the payment deadline. E.g. above AP 31-Dec-15, tax is due 1-Oct-16, the reminder is send in Sept 16.

All documents would contain your payment reference.

Corporation tax payment references change annually to reflect which AP you are paying. The first 10-digits is your company UTR (Unique Tax Reference) followed by A 5-numbers A. e.g. 987654321A00101A. It is the "A00101A" that tells the payment office that: a) it is corporation tax; b) which period it is for.

Your company UTR will always be shown on every letter I send concerning corporation tax. It will never change.

Now they send only the item one 'notice to complete a corporation tax return'.

Items 2 & 3 above, the bill and reminders are no longer issued.

You must make a diary note to pay on time & retain my letter. A copy can be emailed or posted foc.

You can create a government gateway ID and enrol for the corporation tax service. If you already have a government gateway log in for the company, you can enrol for the service by logging into HMRC and find enrol for corporation. This can also be down directly on the Government Gateway site http://www.gateway.gov.uk/Default.aspx 

By enrolling for the service, you can see your own payment reference, pay bills among some other things.

PRO TIP

You only need one government gateway ID for your company.

You can enrol for many services with one log in:

• Corporation tax
• PAYE employers
• VAT
• Auto-Enrolment
• Also many other non-tax services - log in through the web address above for the full list. Logging-in through HMRC will only allow you to enrol for tax related services.