MTD for Income Tax, filed for you.

What Making Tax Digital for Income Tax actually changes

For years, being self-employed or renting out property meant one tax return a year. You gathered everything together after 5 April, filed by 31 January and paid what you owed. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (often shortened to MTD for ITSA) changes the rhythm.

Once your qualifying income passes the threshold, HMRC wants you to keep your records in MTD-compatible software and send a short summary of your income and expenses every quarter. At the end of the year you still finalise everything with a tax return — but by then most of the work is already done.

Who has to join, and when

HMRC is bringing people in by income band. If your qualifying income — self-employment turnover plus gross rental income, before expenses — was over £50,000, you joined on 6 April 2026. Over £30,000 joins on 6 April 2027. HMRC plans to bring in incomes over £20,000 from April 2028.

HMRC looks at the tax return from two years before to decide whether you are in. So your 2025/26 return decides whether you start in April 2027. That's why we suggest getting set up the winter before.

What a quarterly update is (and isn't)

A quarterly update is not a mini tax return. It's a summary of income and expenses by category for the period, sent straight from your software. There's no tax to pay with each update and no adjustments to make. The quarters run 6 April to 5 July, 6 July to 5 October, 6 October to 5 January and 6 January to 5 April, with each update due on the 7th of the month after the quarter ends.

How we handle it for you

We pick software that suits how you work, connect it to your bank so transactions flow in automatically, and show you how to snap receipts on your phone. Each quarter we check the categories, tidy anything that looks wrong and submit the update. You get a short note with an estimate of the tax you're building up, so 31 January is never a surprise.

At year end we make the adjustments that only an accountant usually spots — capital allowances, use-of-home costs, finance cost relief for landlords — and file your final return.

If you have more than one income source

If you're a sole trader and a landlord, or you have more than one property business, each one has its own quarterly updates. It sounds like more work. In practice it's the same records, just sorted properly — and that's exactly the part we take off your hands.