This week's opinion

I doubt that HMRC’s latest research document  Managing PAYE in Real Time: challenges faced by micro-employers  has quickened the pulse of many readers. But it contains some interesting insights that resonate with the Making Tax Digital (MTD) debate. The report reveals little evidence of deliberate non-compliance but plenty of examples of people doing their best to get things right without really understanding what was required and why. The authors expressed surprise that RTI reporting processes were not built into payroll routines but were regarded as a separate task. It is no surprise to me. Employers’ first priority is making sure that their staff are paid on time. The second is paying HMRC. Filling in the forms is seen as much less important.

There are lessons here for the MTD project. First compliance obligations are more likely to be met when there is a clear understanding of why they are...