Accountants expect clients will need more help with VAT
Welcome to Friday, and a bit of interesting MTD research. Accountants reckon they'll provide VAT submission services for even more clients following next April's VAT deadline.
Software group IRIS has found that accountants do not believe their clients are willing to continue to spend time keeping their books up to date and would prefer their accountants to do the bookkeeping.
Around 58 per cent of accountancy practices expect to provide bookkeeping services for clients from 2019. Nearly 73 per cent will continue to carry out submissions for clients when HMRC’s online VAT service ends for businesses with a turnover above the VAT threshold. And nearly two-thirds would make quarterly VAT submissions using bookkeeping software in April 2019.
Stepping up the MTD campaign
The news comes as HMRC is working with industry software suppliers like IRIS and KashFlow in the controlled beta phase of the MTD VAT programme, stepping up its campaign to educate accountants and businesses as the programme enters public beta later in the summer.
Sion Lewis, CEO of IRIS, says, “The IRIS survey confirms MTD for VAT is likely to increase demand from UK businesses for accountancy practice compliance services.
Digital journey
"As the digital journey for businesses reaches this next landmark, we see accountants increasingly transform their practices to businesses that are more digitally enabled and client-centric.
"Accountants need to retain the compliance loop at the core of their practice but they should also use them as the springboard for value-added services, enabling to stay relevant in the coming years."
The survey was conducted among 553 IRIS Software and Keytime accountancy practices in March 2018. The size of practice ranged from sole practitioners to practices with more than five partners.
In other news...
- Credit Suisse is aiming to recoup about £322million from the HMRC that the investment bank paid as part of the 2010 bonus levy. It says the levy had an “arbitrary impact”. The bank’s 400 UK managers saw their pot cut by 30 per cent to help fund the tax. The bank, which is creaking under assets of $billions, cut its global bonus pool by 5 per cent. Should be a good court battle. And I know who's side I'm on!
- Philip Hammond, chancellor, has been getting a little hot under the collar over the HMRC/Lycamobile/Buzzfeed shenanigans. The whole thing is probably just a storm in a teacup. Probably.
- On the subject of teacups, I'm trying to make the transition from being a regular consumer of takeaway coffee in paper/plastic cups to using my own non-disposable cup. And I've been inspired to take action by the Big Four! Read what they and other big accounting firms are doing about reducing/ending plastic pollution in an interesting feature here.
