A new study into preparations for Making Tax Digital amongst businesses has found that only 57 per cent of firms are ready to comply with the new regime by 1 April 2019.
Despite the various delays and changes to the Government’s new digital tax system, businesses have had several years to prepare themselves for this landmark change in taxation.
Initially, the new system will only apply to the recording and reporting of VAT on a quarterly basis for those VAT-registered businesses over the VAT threshold (£85,000).
However, the Government intends to extend the system out to other areas of taxation and to other businesses from April 2020 at the earliest.
Businesses will be offered a “soft landing” period of a year during which they won’t be fined if they don’t comply with the reporting requirements in time.
HM Revenue & Customs has also recently confirmed that during this period “where a digital link has not been established between software programs, HMRC will accept the use of cut and paste as being a digital link for these VAT periods.”
Despite its recent communications HMRC has been heavily criticised for not doing enough to make businesses aware of the new regime, with it only launching its social media and email campaign to small businesses in Autumn last year.
