Making Tax Digital (MTD)

If your bookkeeping file is still being “tidied up after month-end”, the 7 August 2026 MTD ITSA deadline is where that approach starts to break.

This is not a soft landing into quarterly reporting. It is the first live HMRC checkpoint for the period 6 April 2026 to 5 July 2026, and it will quick

Did you know that your records can be fully prepared for Making Tax Digital while your quarterly filing remains incomplete? You can also submit an update successfully even when your bookkeeping contains missing sales, duplicated costs or incorrect categories.

Did you know you can submit every MTD quarterly update on time and still face penalties because the figures behind them are incomplete or inaccurate?

Imagine discovering that your client’s “MTD-ready” software is not actually ready for MTD Income Tax, just weeks before the first quarterly update deadline on 7th August 2026. For thousands of accountants and bookkeepers, that is becoming a very real problem in 2026.

Most sole traders entering MTD IT have been recording client lunches as business entertainment expenses without realising that those costs cannot reduce their tax bill. It is not just a missed deduction. Miscoding entertainment across four quarterly updates overstates your allowable and disallowable expenses at every submission, and HMRC corrects that at the year-end declaration.

Did you know that the same insurance policy can be fully deductible for a limited company and completely disallowed for a sole trader, even when both pay from a business account?

Did you know that the first thing most taxpayers do when they receive an HMRC enquiry letter is delete emails? That single action can turn a routine compliance check into a serious fraud investigation.

Imagine setting your payroll budget based only on the headline 15% employer National Insurance…

A sole trader earning £52,000 has until April 2026 to enrol in HMRC’s MTD Income Tax programme using recognised

Did you know that most VAT filing problems start long before your team submits the return? They begin with…