MPs call for delay to Making Tax Digital

HMRC’s Making Tax Digital programme has the potential to be an expensive disaster unless plans for the national rollout are delayed, according to MPs in the Treasury Committee, who are calling for a one to two year delay to the introduction of quarterly reporting, which is being rushed through to meet a 2018 kickoff date.

In a 50-page report, the committee calls for a delay to Making Tax Digital, HMRC’s flagship project to modernise the way tax is reported. The project includes controversial quarterly reporting requirements which would result in five reporting triggers for companies, buy-to-let landlords and the self employed. The introduction should be pushed back ‘until at least 2019/20, possibly later’, the committee said. The current plan is to start quarterly reporting from April 2018 for landlords and self employed, with micro businesses next to come online.

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