Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is no longer a rumour

Making Tax Digital for VAT has been in force for years. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD ITSA) brings the same digital-links discipline to sole traders and landlords above the income threshold HMRC has set for the first wave.

The work is not the quarterly update itself. It is the record-keeping behind it: every sale, purchase and allowable expense in software that can talk to HMRC without a spreadsheet re-key. If your books currently live in a cashbook and a year-end panic, that will not survive the first quarterly window.

We help clients choose software that fits how they actually work — not the one with the loudest advert — set the digital links, and run the first quarterly update with them. The annual Self Assessment does not disappear; it becomes a final declaration on top of the updates.

Limited company directors on PAYE only are not in the first wave. Landlords and sole traders are. If you are both a director and a landlord, expect the property side to pull you in even if the company already files under MTD for VAT.