Quarterly reporting will be burdensome for many companies, warn professional bodies

Requiring companies to report quarterly as part of making tax digital (MTD) for corporation tax offers little benefit to HMRC and will impose a significant burden on businesses the ICAEW’s Tax Faculty has warned.

In its response to HMRC’s consultation on expanding the digitalisation regime to corporation tax the faculty urges HMRC to reconsider quarterly reporting requirements at least for businesses below the VAT registration threshold and organisations that require a senior accounting officer.

It argues that quarterly reports would consist of cash in and out transactions which ‘will tell HMRC very little about the true accounting or tax results of the company for the quarter concerned’.

Further depending on the business size complexity and processes making quarterly reports that are a more accurate reflection of the business’s tax results could take longer than the month currently proposed for submission of reports.

The faculty...