Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT takes effect for VAT registered business with periods starting from 01 April 2019.  From this date, most businesses who are VAT registered and have taxable supplies above the £85,000 threshold (in any 12 month period) will have to submit VAT returns via MTD compliant means.

Many businesses who prepare their own VAT returns are choosing to do this using QuickBooks or Xero.  Just a quick note though… remember to turn on the MTD feature on your package!  Failure to do so will prevent your returns being properly submitted to HMRC.  Turn on should only be done when you are ready to submit your first MTD-compliant return – for most businesses this will be the quarter ending June, July or August 2019.

In Quickbooks this feature can be enabled by editing the VAT settings within the “taxes” section.

And in Xero MTD is enabled through the VAT return section, and clicking “new report available” in the top right hand corner, then selecting “try new report”.