By Mark Jones, director of Carmarthen-based Clay Shaw Butler chartered accountants and business consultants. The Money Matters column appears in the Pembrokeshire Herald, the Carmarthenshire Herald and the Llanelli Herald newspapers.By Mark Jones, director of Carmarthen-based Clay Shaw Butler chartered accountants and business consultants.
The taxman at HMRC has extended the Making Tax Digital for VAT (MTDfV) pilot scheme to all eligible businesses.
For most businesses, compliance with the regulations is mandated for VAT return periods beginning on or after 1 April 2019.
However, MTDfV for some ‘more complex’ businesses has been deferred until 1 October 2019.
This deferral applies to:
- Trusts
- not for profit organisations not set up as companies
- VAT divisions
- VAT groups
- public sector entities such as government departments and NHS Trusts, which have to provide additional information on their VAT return
- local authorities
- public corporations
- traders based overseas
- those required to make payments on account
- annual accounting scheme users
Commenting on the pilot scheme, Clare Sheehan, Deputy Director for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Business, said:
“The MTD pilot is now available to all businesses who will need to use the service from April.
“This marks a significant milestone towards our delivery of a modern tax administration.
“We encourage all eligible businesses to join and try out the service before they are mandated to use it.”
HMRC has also confirmed that Brexit will not affect the introduction of MTDfV.
In a recent letter, Jim Harra, Deputy Chief Executive of HMRC, wrote:
‘Our system is already live and by the end of February we’ll have written to every affected business, encouraging them to join the thousands of others who have registered.’
If you need help with MTDfV, then the team at West Wales chartered accountants Clay Shaw Butler are available to help.
In other news, the HMRC Voice ID system has been in the headlines.
Since 2017, HMRC has captured millions of callers’ voice data on its Voice ID system by encouraging the caller to say a key phrase instead of the conventional password to gain access to their accounts.
However, non-profit organisation Big Brother Watch warns that people have been ‘railroaded into a mass ID scheme by the back door’ and has reported HMRC to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the grounds that it has ‘broken data protection laws’.
A Freedom of Information request revealed almost seven million taxpayers are enrolled in HMRC’s Voice ID database, of which 162,185 individuals have opted out and had their biometric data deleted by HMRC.
A spokesperson for HMRC said:
“Our Voice ID system is very popular with millions of customers as it gives a quick route to access accounts by phone.
“All our data is stored securely, and customers can opt out of Voice ID or delete their records any time they want.”
Link to website stories –
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http://www.clayshawbutler.com/news/latest-news-for-business
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