Profession's view on HMRC’s responses to the MTD consultation

Bang in the middle of the final day for submitting self-assessment tax returns HMRC published its responses to the Making Tax Digital (MTD) consultation documents – meeting its self-imposed deadline of the end of January. Many tax advisers will have been too busy finalising clients’ returns to have had time even to glance at the responses on the day but fortunately the great and the good of the tax profession have perused them.

The general gist seems to be to welcome the concessions made by HMRC for example on spreadsheets. But concern about the timetable and threshold remains.

Andrew Tyrie chair of the House of Commons’ Treasury Committee who has been critical in the past few months about HMRC’s plans called the responses ‘a welcome albeit small step in the right direction’. He noted that it was acting on some of the...