Much like Brexit, the appetite for hearing about Making Tax Digital has diminished over time. The general attitude is along the lines of, ‘we still do not know exactly what it involves, we cannot see it happening on 1 April 2019 and we have 13 months to worry about it anyway’. As such many clients are adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach, until they feel confident they know what really is going to happen.

The pitfall in this plan is that while the rules will be effective for VAT quarters commencing on or after 1 April 2019, any business with a year end date other than 31 March needs to consider adopting Making Tax Digital systems much sooner. A business with a 30 June year end needs to file its VAT obligations through software for the quarter ending 30 June 2019.