A new survey has revealed just how concerned people are about the government’s Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment (MTD for ITSA) plans.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) survey had over 500 responses and found that the majority (70%) of people thought that April 2026 was still an unrealistic start date.
As many as 95% were not confident about HMRC’s ability to oversee the introduction of MTD for ITSA and 87% don’t believe it won’t achieve the stated goal of closing the tax gap.
Over half of respondents said the proposals had ‘significantly adversely affected their trust in the tax system as a whole’.
Alison Kerrey, chair of the joint CIOT/ATT Digitalisation & Agent Services Committee, said, “The responses from this survey make for worrying, although not surprising, reading. Despite the start date being postponed for two years to April 2026 and the introduction being phased based on income levels, tax agents are still very concerned about the impact which the MTD ITSA proposals will have on them and their clients.
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Email Jaime“HMRC’s insistence that MTD will make lives easier, as well as closing the tax gap, continues to be met with scepticism. There is a real lack of confidence that a convenient, user-friendly and effective system will be ready to go by April 2026.
“Worse still, this survey shows that the tax profession is simply not seeing the value of MTD. In particular, members have seen no improvement in accuracy of VAT returns, or increased productivity, since the introduction of MTD for VAT, but report increases in compliance costs.
“The profession is keen to embrace digitalisation where this delivers benefits for their clients and their firms, as evidenced by the significant levels of online filing of Self-Assessment returns. However, HMRC must do more to must retain the faith and confidence of the large numbers of UK taxpayers affected by this change, and their agents.”
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