How do I close this company? Tax issues and possibly dormant?

[VinnyCom]

I'm sure this has been asked before but search didn't turn up anything that matched or more probably, that I understood

End of August 2016, I went self employed and started my own limited company. I registered for CIS deductions and worked for around 8 months before my contract ended and I decided being self employed wasn't for me. My contract ended beginning of May 2017, I told my account I'm going back into full time employment and going to wind the company down. He filed my year end company accounts in August 2018 and I got my CIS rebate for 16/17 and 17/18 financial years back.

Now my issue is that my accountant was terrible. I had to tell him multiple times to do things he said he already did but hadn't and also had to correct his accounts since he got my expenses and mileage wrong. He told me that my corporation tax (around £2.9k) would come off my rebate and the remainder would be returned to me. Now my total rebate was 2k higher then expected, which I didn't complain about.

Last week, 10 months after I stopped trading, I got a letter from HMRC saying my Corporation tax of £3.6k is overdue. Now this is bit of a surprise to me as when I called HMRC regarding my rebate, they told me nothing was outstanding and they would transfer my final rebate to my account. Not to mention it's higher than what my accountant claimed it would be.

As I'm planning on buying my first home with my partner, £3.5k is a major blow to my finances. Can I do anything to reduce this amount?

Also, I don't know if my accountant actually filed my final company accounts (probably not since he was useless) or if I need to do it again this year even though I didn't do any trading. My accountant has now disappeared and an old colleague told me to just ignore filing accounts and CH will eventually strike my company off, wiping the overdue tax since it's a relatively small amount. Now that doesn't sound legit to me and I don't want to get more fines from late accounts, assuming I still need to file them.

So what do I need to do to close this Ltd company and how do I check if I still need to file accounts?

[MrButton]

If you search your company on the CH website. It should tell you if accounts are due.

[VinnyCom]

thanks for the tip, I forgot I could search on CH for free.

So turns out my company is still listed as active and not dormant, another thing my accountant guaranteed would be done and isn't. He's lucky he's not local or he'd have a number of disgruntled clients turning up at his door.

So my Next accounts made up to 31 August 2018 are due by 31 May 2019 and my next confirmation statement date 29 August 2018 is due by 12 September 2018.

So I got a bit of time to sort this mess out, seems like the only thing I need to act on so far is my confirmation statement, whatever that is. Think I need to find another accountant, one that actually does their job well, and have a chat.