Cost of postponing making tax digital

The deferral of making tax digital for income tax self-assessment (MTD ITSA) will cost the exchequer more than £1.75bn for the financial years up to and including 2027-28 according to figures in the chancellor’s Budget documents.

The CIOT and ATT have concerns about the exact calculation of these additional revenues but agree that increased digitalisation can deliver significant benefits.

Alison Hobbs chair of the joint CIOT and ATT digitalisation and agent strategy committee said: ‘The announcement to defer the implementation of MTD for ITSA and subsequently introduce it in a staged manner was clearly the correct one. The incredibly limited testing combined with significant problems still to be resolved meant that this delay had to happen. However according to government figures the cost is clearly substantial.’

Making tax digital was announced without prior consultation ...