Preparing clients for making tax digital

Key points

• Businesses in making tax digital for VAT must use digital links from April 2021.
• Prioritise clients who seem least well prepared for phase 2.
• Bridging software continues to be a viable option.
• Use of receipt capture products helps with automation.

At the onset of the pandemic HMRC made the decision to delay plans to roll out the next phase of making tax digital (MTD). While a welcome move at the time businesses that would have had to put digital links in place last year must now do this for VAT periods starting from 1 April 2021. Further from April 2022 all VAT-registered enterprises in the UK will be expected to file their tax returns digitally.

So small and medium sized enterprises up and down the country must prepare to digitalise their taxes in the next few weeks. This is a not insubstantial task if their...