Britain’s farmers lead the way on MTD and, somewhat bizarrely, the financial sector is lagging behind.
And according to the HMRC: “Businesses in the agriculture sector are one of the fastest groups to sign up to MTD. 50 per cent already registered.
“The financial sector is one of the slowest to register with nearly 75 per cent yet to sign up.”
HMRC urges businesses with a turnover above £85,000 to sign up to MTD before the 7 August VAT filing date.
Farmers lead way on MTD
MTD became law for VAT periods starting on or after 1 April. Many of the 1.2 million businesses affected need to submit their first quarterly return using software by 7 August.
And if paying by direct debit, these businesses must register by Monday 29 July.
- Around 10,000 businesses are registering for MTD every day
- And more than 600,000 have signed up in total with some 400,000 submissions already successfully made using software
The benefits of MTD
Theresa Middleton, director of MTD at HMRC, says: “Now is the time for businesses with an August quarterly filing deadline to sign up. And join the hundreds of thousands already experiencing the benefits of MTD.
“During this first year we won’t be issuing filing or record keeping penalties to businesses doing their best to comply.”
HMRC expects MTD to reduce tax lost due to errors, thanks to the improved accuracy that digital records provide and the fact that information is sent directly from software to HMRC.
But the latest tax gap figures showed mistakes cost taxpayers £9.9 billion last year – £3 billion attributable to VAT alone.