News
June 2009
EU to remove all accounting requirements for Micro-companies:
The following has been extracted from a statement published on the European Union’s
website:
“The European Commission has put forward a new proposal which would allow Member States to completely abolish financial reporting obligations for the EU's smallest companies. In a deteriorating economic climate, the new rules are designed to alleviate the regulatory burden on micro entities. The proposal, which was flagged in November 2008, now passes to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for consideration.
The purpose of the proposed amendment to the Fourth Council Directive (78/660/EEC on the annual accounts of certain types of companies) is to allow Member States to relieve the EU's smallest companies (commonly referred to as "micro-entities") from the requirements of this Directive.
Micro entities would be defined as those companies that on their balance sheet dates do not exceed the limits of two of the three following criteria: balance sheet total of EUR 500,000, net turnover of EUR 1,000,000 and an average number of employees during the financial year of 10.”
On the assumption that this is passed by the European Parliament, the United Kingdom would then be able to put in place a regime for these companies without reference to EU financial reporting requirements. This would include no longer being under an EU obligation to require businesses to file annual accounts.
