The government is planning to digitalise the tax system from April 2018 onwards with a phased start for the various taxes.
The main aim of making tax digital (MTD) is to simplify the tax system and reduce the number of taxpayers that need to submit self assessment returns moving forward.
The principal of MTD is that you will have an online tax account that will keep track of all of your individual and business tax automatically. These accounts will be submitted to HMRC on a quarterly basis to estimate the taxes that are due.
The system is intended to be more transparent and prevent the current number of avoidable taxpayer errors that are made by small businesses.
The good news is that any third party information received by HMRC will automatically be available in your online tax account so there will no longer be the need to hunt for your P60 at the end of the year! The bad news is that the quarterly submissions will need to be filed using software that has this facility.
The relevant dates for MTD and the relevant taxes are as follows:
• April 2018 for income tax if you are self-employed and above the VAT registration threshold
• April 2019 for all VAT and for income tax if you are self-employed and below the VAT registration threshold
• April 2020 for corporation tax
• Partnerships with a turnover in excess of 10m, will be deferred until 2020 due to the complexity of their affairs
Anyone with a turnover of £10,000 or less will be exempt from MTD unless they have a secondary income that takes them over the £10,000 threshold or they wish to voluntarily participate in MTD. This includes sole traders, self employed, pensioners or people with income from property.
Businesses will be able to continue to collate their records on spreadsheets but this will now need to be linked to software that has the facility to send submissions to HMRC.
Small businesses that are eligible for simplified accounts will be able to continue to submit their income, expenses and profit in the same manor.
There will only be some small exemptions for businesses that are genuinely unable to get online due to individual circumstances such as disabilities or internet access due to remote geographical location.
These huge changes will affect millions of individuals and businesses and the agents that represent them. Further information will follow as HMRC outlines more details but please contact us for further advice on how this may affect you and your business.
We will be here to help you at any stage of these developments.
