The MTD Shortcut

The deadline for being ready for Making Tax Digital is fast approaching but Onkho Chief Evangelist Susan Rahman says “it’s no big deal”. Here’s her bare bones shortcut guide with headlines and some very simple practical advice that you can act upon straight away.

Which clients are impacted?

All businesses that are VAT registered and have turnover in excess of £85,000.

What do impacted clients have to do?

They will need to submit VAT returns electronically using HMRC’s new MTD service.

They will need to maintain digital records to support their VAT calculations.

What do impacted clients need?

They will need software to record their transactions, generate their VAT return and submit the VAT return using HMRC’s new MTD service.

How are agents impacted?

Agents need to make sure that they (or their clients) have software that can use HMRC’s new MTD service.

Agents need to register to use the new MTD service. This is not the same service that is used today to submit VAT returns electronically.

Each client needs to authorise their agent to submit VAT returns on their behalf. This is not the same authorisation that is used today to submit VAT returns electronically.

What are the deadlines?

All impacted clients must be recording transactions digitally from 1st April 2019.

For each client, the first VAT return that needs to be submitted using HMRC’s new MTD service will be the one for a VAT period that starts on or after 1st April 2019. That means there is a different deadline, depending on how often a client submits their VAT return.

What is the Big Deal?

MTD does not change the way that VAT is calculated or how often it is submitted so there is no impact there. This is a process challenge – making sure that agents and their impacted clients are ready on time. Once that’s all done, it’s business as usual…just as it is today. MTD does not change the work that agents do.

To find out how Onkho can help you meet the process challenge read on.