Making Tax Digital is set to be a significant change for most businesses, many of whom may never kept computerised records.

We are able to offer help and support with the transition and ongoing digital quarterly reporting.

From April 2019 businesses above the VAT threshold will be mandated to keep their records digitally and provide quarterly updates to HMRC. This will initially be for their VAT but will gradually be extended to cover all taxes, eventually replacing the self assessment tax return.

Businesses with an annual income of £10,000 a year or less will be exempt from the changes initially, although they can choose to report voluntarily.

HMRC will not provide any software itself but has said that free packages will be made available.

We already offer full support for the Xero, Quickbooks On Line and Kashflow online accounting packages and we believe that moving to an online accounting package now is likely to make the transition to the Digital Tax system much easier. See the ‘Online Accounting’ section for further information on maintaining your records digitally.

Further consultations will be published in due course, which are likely to give further details of how Making Tax Digital will affect other types of business, including limited companies, as well as individuals.