A Certificate of Incorporation from the CRO means your company legally exists. It does not mean you can trade, hire, or issue a valid invoice. Registering with Revenue for tax is a completely separate process, and the gap between these two steps is where a large share of new founders
Under Section 865 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, Revenue owes you a refund whenever the tax collected from your pay exceeds what you actually owed for the year. It doesn’t matter why the overpayment happened. What matters is that Revenue has no general obligation to tell you it happened.
A missed Annual Return Date starts with an automatic €100 fine. Then €3 gets added for every day it stays unfiled, up to a maximum of €1,200. That’s the mild version. File late a second time within any five-year period and the company loses its audit exemption for the following
By Ger O’Connor (FCA), Founder & Managing Director, Fuchsia Bell Chartered Accountants. Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland with over 20 years advising Irish startups, SMEs and owner-managers. Last updated: 13 August 2026. For most Irish SMEs, a tax-efficient business structure means one thing: a limited company, with profits you don’t
