The UK Government announced this week that Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD for ITSA) will now be from April 2026, rather than April 2024.
Businesses and self-employed individuals are all facing a challenging economic environment, and that the transition to MTD for ITSA for the self-employed and small landlords represents a significant change for taxpayers record keeping.
This means that from April 2026 self employed and landlords will be required to keep electronic records via an approved/HMRC compatible software solution and submit quarterly statements to HMRC digitally rather than the current once a year self assessment return.
Schedule
More details on MTD: Qtly MTD
Comment
We find it surprising that this has been postponed for two years given employers have been monthly filing under MTD rules for payroll since 2013 and limited companies have been required to submit VAT returns under MTD since April 2022 and we can only assume systems in development between HMRC and the major bookkeeping software providers such as Sage, Intuit QuickBooks and Xero are not working properly although some have been in testing for many months now.