Making Tax Digital – kicking the can down the road

Whilst the Spring Statement (easy to miss amidst the Brexit drama!) contained few tax announcements (it isn’t supposed to) two things that were said, particularly put together, make interesting reading.

The government said it “remains committed” to Making Tax Digital with mandatory digital record keeping for VAT for businesses over the VAT threshold (with turnover over £85,000) coming into force from 1 April 2019. But it was announced that the government will not be mandating MTD for any new taxes in 2020. So the introduction of MTD for income tax and corporation tax is at least two years away.

In addition a process of consultation was announced on simplifying the process of amending a tax return (which MTD would ultimately do away with). Whilst this only deals with amendments (and not initial returns) the fact that HMRC are looking at this process at the same time might be indicative of a longer delay in the implementation of MTD beyond VAT.