With six months to go until MTD for Income Tax is rolled out to 900,000 UK taxpayers, just over 2,000 people have filed a quarter 1 submission as part of HMRC beta trial
HMRC has been urging affected taxpayers, tax advisers and accountancy firms to sign up to the pilot programme to iron out any technical issues in advance of the April 2026 launch of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax, stressing that there are no penalties during the testing period.
Several thousand have signed up to the testing programme so far, a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands due to be dragged into phase one of the rollout.
From 6 April 2026, MTD becomes mandatory for around 900,000 self employed and landlords with income over £50,000, requiring quarterly reporting to HMRC and a year-end statement, eventually replacing self assessment.
So far there are only around 2,000 people on the beta testing programme.
