VAT: Delay to next phase of Making Tax Digital

(There is no move to bring forward any changes to income tax returns for now and this seems unlikely to go ahead before 2022 at the earliest)

Since April 2019, VAT returns have had to be submitted using special software – either linking to a bookkeeping spreadsheet or via accounting software packages.

Phase 2, scheduled for April 2020, will make it compulsory to use ‘digital links’ to capture the total figures for the VAT return from bookkeeping entries – no typing in total figures for the return.

Yesterday there was a very welcome 11th-hour announcement that this next phase, MTD2, would be postponed to April 2021. One change fewer is certainly useful at this point.