Personal Tax Accounts

Posted on

HMRC previously announced that they intend to move to a ‘digital tax system’ over the next few years. There has been a lot of debate in the press about exactly what this will mean for taxpayers, although as yet there is limited practical detail of how the new system will work. This note explains what we know so far and how we expect the changes to affect our clients.
HMRC’s main proposals are set out in the ‘Making Tax Digital’ roadmap published in December 2015 following the original announcement in the March 2015 Budget. This document confirms that the intention of the digitalisation is to make tax administration “more effective, more efficient and easier for taxpayers”.
By 2020, HMRC intend to have moved to a fully digital tax system where:
 Form filling is eradicated – taxpayers should never have to tell HMRC information it already knows.
 Unnecessary time delays are eliminated – the tax system should operate on more of a ‘real-time’ basis, which should reduce errors and under-reporting.
 Taxpayers have access to digital tax accounts, with the information HMRC has automatically uploaded.
 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.