From 6 April 2025, close company directors have to give more detail on their Self Assessment return. The new rules sit in the Income Tax (Additional Information to be Included in Returns) Regulations 2025. The first returns affected are 2025/26 Self Assessments. You can file from 6 April 2026. The deadline is 31 January 2027.
The amount of tax you pay does not change. What HMRC sees on your return does – in much more detail, on a per-company basis. For owner-managers of small and family companies, 2025/26 is the first full cycle under the new rules. The ICAEW and the ATT have already flagged it as a likely problem area.
Our personal tax team has written this short guide. It covers what’s new, why it bites harder than it looks, and what to do about it.
What’s New for Close Company Directors
The SA102 used to need just two boxes ticked. One to confirm directorship. One optional box if the company was close. From 2025/26, those boxes are no longer enough.
If you’re a director of a close company in the tax year, you now have to give, for each company:
- the company name and registered number;
- your percentage of share capital (and the highest percentage you held during the year if it changed);
- the dividend income you received from the company.
A nil entry is required if you took no dividend. Director of more than one close company? You repeat the disclosure for each.
The dividend figure on the SA102 must match the figure on the main SA100. The cross-check is automatic.
Why This Is Harder Than It Looks
For a sole director with one share class and one dividend, the new boxes are a tidy-up job. For most owner-managers, the picture is messier.
Family companies often issue, transfer or redeem shares mid-year for sound commercial reasons. The new rules ask for the highest percentage you held during the year – not your year-end position. Alphabet share structures need careful unpicking. Your percentage of a specific share class will not always match the cash dividend received.
Directors on two or three family or group boards repeat the disclosure for each. A nil-dividend year now needs a positive nil entry. A blank box risks an HMRC query.
The reconciliation is where most problems will start. The dividend on your SA102 must match the figure on your SA100. It also has to tie back to the dividends declared in the company’s accounts and CT600.
Three things cause it to fail. Share classes get missed. Mid-year transfers don’t get captured. The personal and company sides get put together by different hands. When the numbers don’t line up, HMRC writes.
A Sign of What’s Coming
The 2025/26 SA102 changes do not sit on their own. In March 2026, HMRC published a separate consultation: “Reporting company payments to participators”. It proposes making close companies themselves report transactions with their shareholders. That covers loans, distributions and asset transfers.
The direction of travel is clear. HMRC is building a fuller picture of close company arrangements. Small owner-managed companies sit firmly inside its risk model. The 2025/26 changes look like step one.
That is the underlying point for owner-managers. The new boxes are not, in themselves, expensive to comply with. The world they sit inside is. More reporting, more cross-checking, more HMRC visibility. The directors most exposed are those whose personal and company tax positions are prepared by different hands.
How Hamlyns Can Help
Our personal tax and business tax teams work together with close company directors. We make sure the company side and the personal side line up. The company side covers dividend declarations, the share register, board minutes and the CT600. The personal side covers the SA102, dividend disclosures and your wider tax position. The new 2025/26 disclosures make that alignment more important than ever.
If you’re a director of a close company in Surrey – or several – we can help. Please get in touch. We can review your shareholding records, dividend documentation and 2025/26 reporting position before the filing window gets busy. The first cycle under the new rules is the right time to put your process onto a clean footing.
This piece builds on our recent post, Dividend Tax Rises in 2026/27: What Company Directors Should Do Next. That post covers the new rates on dividends declared from 6 April 2026.
