Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

You may be aware of the changes in tax coming from April 2026. HMRC require sole traders or people with income from property over £50,000 to keep their records digitally and also submit quarterly updates to them.

Are mandated from April 2026

If your Self Employment income, income from Rental Property, or the combination of both rental income and self employment, on your 2024/2025 tax return was above the £50,000 limit you will be mandated from April 2026.

What is changing?

This does not need to be as daunting as it seems, the requirement from HMRC is to maintain your records regularly and digitally and report on a cash basis to them each quarter.

How?

We have some easy to use solutions:

  • Continue using a spreadsheet, and connect to a bridging software for submissions to HMRC. The bridging software is also a spreadsheet which using a simple formular connects information from your spreadsheet to the bridging software.
  • Use an accounting software such as QuickBooks which can connect to your bank for easy recording and it MTD ready for submission to HMRC.

What can Katie Sauvage Accountancy Services Ltd do to help?

There is also a choice as to how much support you will need from us. Again there are a few options that you can choose:

  1. You may feel comfortable completing the recording your income and expenses and quarterly submissions yourself and just need help completing with the final year end return.
  2. You may want to record your income and expenses for the quarter and then want me to review and submit quarterly and completing the final year end return.
  3. You may want full support with the whole process and want the bookkeeping, quarterly reports and final year end submission.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed, this is personal to your needs and I am happy to support you in any way you feel necessary.

Important Dates

New deadlines and reporting dates from April 2026 for the 2026/2027 tax year will be:

  • Quarter 1 April 2026 to June 2026 – report submission date 7th August 2026
  • Quarter 2 July 2026 to September 2026 – report submission date 7th November 2026
  • Quarter 3 October 2026 to December 2026 – report submission date 7th February 2027
  • Quarter 4 January 2027 to March 2027 – report submission date 7th May 2027
  • Final Submission – full year plus any other income same as a Self Assessment tax return due 31st  January 2028
  • Balancing payment of tax due 31st January 2028
  • Payments on account for the 27/28 tax year, 31st January 2028 and 31st July 2028

Your tax return for the tax year 2025/2026 will be completed in the normal way with the deadline of the 31st January 2027

Just to finish, the changes are only in the way the information is reported to HMRC and currently there is no discussions about changes to the way tax is paid and that will remain as payments on account in January and July with the balancing payment the following January.