This Institute attended the launch of the roadmap for HMRC’s ambitious Making Tax Digital project last month. David Gauke, MP and Financial Secretary to the Treasury opened the conference with a speech outlining the plans.

Making Tax Digital sets out how this bold vision for the future of the UK tax system is targeted to be achieved by 2020. This Institute will be engaging with HMRC as the project develops.

Consultations

The project will see three consultations in 2016. The first in early 2016 will look at payments. HMRC are keen to stress no decisions have been taken in this particular area and they are planning workshops, webinars and meetings initially to inform policy though it is clear they would like to consider “real time” options for payments.

The second consultation in Spring 2016 will look at the scope of mandating businesses to provide quarterly updates to HMRC and will examine the £10,000 carve out announced at the 2015 Autumn Statement in addition to considering if charities and other bodies should be included or not. This consultation will also look at the make-up of the quarterly “computation” and report to HMRC. HMRC also wish to explore what additional 3^rd party data sources they can tap into to pre-populate information.

The final consultation in Summer 2016 will examine what changes are required to the tax legislation and administration framework to deliver the project.

Agent Community

HMRC do recognise that this will be a major cultural change for UK businesses and believe the agent community has a major role to play in driving this change. They also recognise the importance of ensuring the digitally excluded are catered for.