Businesses urged to register for Making Tax Digital before August
12 July 2019
Many of the 1.2 million businesses affected by the new Making Tax Digital (MTD) rules will be required to submit their first quarterly return to HMRC using software by 7 August.
If paying by direct debit, these businesses must register by Friday 27 July.
HMRC’s reveals that:
- At the moment, around 10,000 businesses are registering for MTD every day
- More than 600,000 businesses have signed up in total, with some 400,000 submissions already successfully made using software
- Businesses in the agriculture sector (such as farmers) have been one of the fastest groups to sign up to MTD, with 50% already registered
- The financial sector has been one of the slowest to sign up, with nearly 75% yet to sign up
The Director of Making Tax Digital at HMRC has said that during this first year it won’t be issuing filing or record keeping penalties to businesses doing their best to comply. However, HMRC is urging those businesses affected to sign up for Making Tax Digital on GOV.UK as soon as possible.
HMRC expects MTD to reduce tax lost due to errors, thanks to the improved accuracy that digital records provide and the fact that information is sent directly from software to HMRC. The latest tax gap figures showed avoidable mistakes cost taxpayers more than £9.9 billion last year – £3 billion attributable to VAT alone.