Knowledge Base — Making Tax Digital

HMRC has today announced significant changes to the roll-out of its Making Tax Digital scheme, which was due to go live from April 2018.

The scope and timetable have now been pared back following feedback and concerns about the broad scope and short timescales from parliamentary bodies, businesses, the accounting profession and software companies, including Xero } ?>.

As a digital advocate, we support HMRC's vision for a digital tax system, and not least because of the £8Bn tax gap the government attributes to poor record-keeping practices by SMBs.

It is crucial that businesses and the accounting industry are given adequate time to adapt to new methods of compliance record-keeping. And where possible, any new rules should also improve SMB and accountant productivity and not just satisfy HMRC's own agenda.

The UK still languishes at the bottom of the table of G8 nations for productivity; it follows that smarter and more productive UK SMBs will play an important role in securing our economic future at the same time as creating vital new jobs in the next decade. So this extra time to build and bed down new digital processes for SMBs and accountants is welcomed, and we are glad that HMRC has responded to the many concerns raised.