The plan is to start a large-scale public beta testing programme in 2025 before mandatory reporting comes in for landlords and sole traders with income over the initial £50,000 threshold in April 2026 and £30,000 from April 2027.

The complexity of the requirements for Making Tax Digital for income tax (MTD ITSA) meant that the first trial phase had to be abandoned after less than 100 users signed up to test the system, so now HMRC is finetuning the software and taking into account the inevitable complexities of the new system before running a more extensive trial.