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Nothing so sure as… taxes!
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Nothing so sure as… taxes!

7 August: today is an important deadline if your business is VAT-eligible

Since 1 April this year, HMRC’s Making Tax Digital for VAT has been in operation for all businesses whose turnover is above the VAT threshold of £85,000 per annum. These businesses are now required to keep digital records and submit quarterly returns for VAT through compatible software only.

Today, 7 August, is the final deadline for submitting digital data for the first financial quarter of the current UK tax year.

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT is part of an overarching HMRC MTD scheme that, by 2021, will encompass all submissions for tax being made using software and digital links.

Why MTD?

The government wants to make the UK’s tax system a world-leading, modern, efficient system and, for VAT in particular, they want to help businesses calculate their VAT returns more accurately to recoup the £9bn of revenues currently lost each year to errors in form filling and paper handling.

What does it mean?

It means there will, eventually, be no more annual tax returns, no more processed pieces of paper. As digital information will have to be input more regularly, tax updates will happen in ‘real time’ – HMRC will collect and process data so that businesses can access their completely up-to-date tax position. Inevitably, it does mean there may be penalties for not updating regularly enough or submitting by set deadlines – so make sure you have uploaded your data today to hit the very first MTD deadline!

If this has made you feel a little panicky, there is plenty of robust information at www.gov.uk about MTD – including step-by-step guides to check your eligibility, signing up, exemptions, special accounting schemes, software compatibility and so on.

And what do I do with all those paper records I’ve kept for years?

At last, it’s time to streamline!

Receipts, invoices, spreadsheets, statements – they will all have to be submitted as digital data from now on – so, depending on the statutory retention and disposal timeframes for specific types of record, may we recommend some maximum security, minimum stress shredding?

Here at Restore Datashred we can help your peace of mind during the transition to MTD for VAT, and beyond. Our collections, on- and off-site services and handling processes guarantee the safe passage of your assets from office or storage facility to our shredder blades and on into recycling. All our processes and safeguards are designed to prevent data breaches and the damage to your reputation and bottom line that can go with them.

Find out all about us here.

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