Q. If travel & subsistence is going to be allowable on some contracts & not on others & HMRC is to press ahead with Making Tax Digital, it will be interesting to see how the much heralded “free” software that will enable all business to computerise their accounts will handle this. The proposal is that the software will enable the business to send in 4 tax returns a year, to keep their tax fully up to date. This is apparently a labour saving initiative by HMRC. You could not make it up.
A. Treasury minister, David Gauke, has described the current way of filing tax returns as ‘an outdated system designed for a world of paper & not fit for the 21st century’. He has said that Making Tax Digital will give businesses ‘greater control, certainty & confidence’. The ‘software will do much of the work to provide HMRC with the required information for the quarterly updates, so submitting an update will feel very light touch’. Convinced yet? No, me neither!
David Gauke is absolutely correct – tax returns are ridiculous, very costly and outdated.
But any digital way of delivering tax has to work and work well across all the various complex tax scenarios.
Simplifying the tax system must be a priority and a sensible roll-out plan, that deals with simple, high volume scenarios initially (with lots of support) and then progressively more complex things later. During transition there may also need to be ways to enter information and even questions electronically that can be dealt with manually.
Digital is the best way to do tax (with access to manual support) but it really needs to be implemented well.