All you need to know about Making Tax Digital

Hi Guys, I’m Mitch Hahn partner at Nordens Chartered Accountants.

If you are a small business you would have hopefully heard of Making Tax Digital or MTD for short. We wanted to share some answers to some of the big questions around Making Tax Digital, also about VAT and ultimately how Nordens can help get you up to speed with this initiative.

So, what’s the deal with Making Tax Digital…

Making tax digital is HMRC’s compulsory initiative aimed at making tax simpler for UK businesses. Making Tax Digital for VAT is the first development which comes in to play from 1st April 2019 and the scheme will later be extended to other tax processes such as income tax and corporation tax from April 2020.

It’s important to know that the VAT rules on sales are exactly the same, they are not changing. What is changing is HOW you submit your VAT records. But there is no need to worry because so long as compatible software like Xero, SAGE, Kashflow..is being used the process will be easy, if not beautiful!

VAT registered businesses above the £85k threshold will be affected first. They will have to keep digital records and submit their returns preferably using cloud accounting software.

If you are below the threshold, you won’t be immediately affected, but you can take this opportunity to switch to online accounting which will allow you to produce fantastic information to make key decisions in your business.

So when does it start…

If your business turnover is £85k or higher you will need to be compliant for MTD by 1 April 2019.

There are still a lot of small UK companies that are using HMRC’s government gateway to manually enter VAT returns. If you use cloud accounting for your VAT returns or any of your accounting/bookkeeping needs we can simply send it through digitally directly from your cloud software.

If you are not already using cloud accounting, there is still time to switch and submit Making Tax Digital returns before the deadline but we definitely wouldn’t recommend leaving it until the last minute! So why not start enjoying the benefits of cloud accounting as soon as you possibly can.

If you need to move on to MTD compliant software you can get in touch and we can recommend the best possible software which is going to benefit your business as Nordens are partnered with all the leading HMRC approved Making tax digital vendors. We can provide training and support and we will show you how to make using cloud software more effective and efficient showing you how easy it is to use.

If you are already using software it shouldn’t cost you any extra to submit your MTD VAT Returns and were already helping over 2000 businesses with our award-winning team at Nordens. We are helping make the digital transition smoother so you can focus on running your business.

It’s really easy to switch to digital accounting and working with Nordens you will always be on the latest most efficient version of the software with dedicated training and support. Nordens understand how Making Tax Digital will impact you, we’ve got loads of information and all the right tools to help you prepare for this mandatory move.

So for more information, why don’t you give us a call and speak to one of our award-winning team to help start your migration process today – our details are coming up on the screen.

If you’d like to know more about how we can help you stay compliant with MTD, as well as ensuring that your business is running in the most profitable way, call us to arrange a free chat over coffee with a member of our team. You can ring 0208 530 0720, or email paula.w@nordens.co.uk.