MTD for VAT: Pilot now open to all affected businesses
10 January 2019
HMRC has today (Thursday 10 January) announced the extension of its Making Tax Digital for VAT (MTD-VAT) pilot, meaning that all customers mandated to use the MTD service from April are now able to access the pilot. All VAT registered entities with an annual VAT-able turnover of £85,000 or more will now therefore have the chance to test their accounting systems, prior to them being required to keep a digital record of their VAT transactions from 1 April 2019 onwards.
The pilot appears to be going successfully, according to HMRC. Over 3,500 businesses have already joined it with the number of daily sign-ups now exceeding 100. Other VAT businesses that are mandated to join from October 2019 are seeing the pilot scheme gradually open up to include those firms as well.
HMRC is rightly urging “as many eligible businesses as possible” to take part in the pilot ahead of the April mandation. It makes perfect sense to do so. Failing to engage with the pilot puts your or your client’s firm at risk of making mistakes or finding you need to change the way you report figures after the mandation date, potentially meaning you will be non-compliant. Joining the pilot now means you can check any teething problems with the system and for HMRC themselves to have confidence in the system, and for you to train up all relevant staff without any fear or concern of consequences.
There are approximately 70 software solutions available for MTD-VAT on the HMRC website so there really is no excuse for not having a solution in place.
AAT has produced a detailed guide to help accountants and bookkeepers prepare their clients for the first implementation phase of Making Tax Digital. This is available at aat.org.uk/mtd-guide
