The Government will soon require most businesses, self-employed people and landlords to keep track of their tax affairs digitally, and update HMRC at least quarterly via their digital tax account. HMRC will facilitate this by ensuring the availability of free apps and software, and provide support to those who need help using digital technology.
HMRC is making huge savings through making services digital, and as George Osborne argued last month, taxpayers shouldn’t have to be paying for paper processing, or 170 separate tax offices around the country in the twenty-first century. The reforms also contribute to a target to reduce the costs to businesses by £400 million by the end of 2019-20.
In addition to these changes, this system will be secure and far less burdensome than the tax returns of today, and will decrease admin. Whilst it is understandable that businesses may feel that going from one submission to four is increasing their responsibilities, these changes have been made to simplify the process and reduce the workload for businesses. If you would like more reassurance on how these changes will help businesses please click here.
There will be an extensive consultation process on the details of these measures in spring 2016.
By Patrick McLoughlin on January 07, 2016