By Timothy Adler on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
Millions of self-employed will not have to start reporting their tax income quarterly to the taxman from April 2023 as planned.
Bowing to pressure, ministers have postponed overhauling personal tax for the self-employed for another year, in what has been called the biggest shakeup in 25 years.
Making Tax Digital was scheduled to make 4.3m self-employed and small business owners keep digital records and report their income to HMRC every quarter rather than annually from April 2023.
Instead, the measures will now come into place in April 2024, the Government announced on Thursday.
Self-employed tax burden
Ministers have bowed to pressure after complaints that rolling out Making Tax Digital to any self-employed person earning over £10,000 a year would be another administrative burden coming on top of coronavirus and the shaky recovery.
“The government recognises the challenges faced by many UK businesses and their representatives as the country emerges from the pandemic over the past year,” Lucy Frazer, newly appointed financial secretary to the Treasury, said in a written ministerial statement.
HMRC is pushing for the self-employed to complete their tax returns every quarter to reduce the number of inaccuracies – either