Government defends Making Tax Digital for landlords

More Government gaslighting. MTD is just more bureaucracy to deter small businesses, add costs, and spy on you. It won’t belong before they’ll require every invoice to be submitted and not just totals.

What an absolute load of rubbish!!!
I’m self employed and know many other self employed people including landlords, and i have not met a single person who thinks its a good idea. My accountant also hates it.
It takes all workers away from their real jobs, the more time we spend working on admin, paperwork, bureaucracy the less time we are spending on actually earning money. Going to the accountant now 4-5 times a year, getting an invoice for each visit…. yes that does make sense to a financially inept govt.

Reply to the comment left by Hong Kong Phooey at 08/09/2026 – 11:00
Yes, totally agree. Even the National Audit Office says making tax digital will cost far more to operate than it takes in taxes, but govt persists because it is all part of the digital prison being slowly built around us, for which no cost is too high, as I explain here: https://www.lettingfocus.com/blogs/2026/04/more-on-the-madness-of-making-tax-digital/

Totally agree with all the comments above. This government has wrecked small businesses with NI and minimum wages.Now it wants landlords whose intention was just a simple investment with a few properties to struggle with MTD and force many to employ expensive accountants which will put pressure on rents.
Perhaps Labour will remove section 24 though.

My parents who are partners in our property business are 86 and 90 years old and do not own a computer. It is beyond me how they should be expected to conform to this.
I am sure that it should be illegal at some level to expect them to suddenly become computer literate for no actual benefit.

MTD may possibly work for some people who submit their own tax return. For many it will be many, many hours of learning how to use it while still relying on the spreadsheets they are familiar with.
For those of us who use an accountant it’s just another load of work. My accountant doesn’t want to get involved with the quarterly submissions and has said I need to submit for myself and my husband, then they will make any corrections on the end of year submission. We know the software can’t cope with two of our mortgages correctly but there’s not much I can do about that each quarter. My son’s accountant wants me to send him the profit and loss reports every quarter so he can do my son’s quarterly submissions.
Basically there’s no standardisation and it has created a huge amount of extra work.
In some respects I quite like the software I use. It doesn’t just do MTD. It can send invoices when tenants forget to pay their rent and it reminds me when gas safety or Right to Rent checks are due. It’s quite satisfying reconciling regular bank transactions. Where it really falls down is one off transactions or credit card reconciliation. There is a huge amount of manual entry involved. Overall the book keeping aspect was a lot quicker and easier with a spreadsheet and CSV download, which is pretty much what my accountant still wants.

Reply to the comment left by Jo Westlake at 08/09/2026 – 11:32
What’s a spreadsheet? I am 90 years old and am not going back to school or employing an accountant or wasting what is left of my life kow-towing to these endless government laws just to make zero profit while house prices are in free fall and if enough people actually stood up, like the Poll tax , MTD would be shelved. Unqualified individuals should not be expected to make returns using complex IT instruments IMO or be forced to use accountants.
Quite amazing your accountant is too lazy to get involved with quarterly submissions and when it all goes wrong these accountants will no doubt say they bear no responsibility, but meanwhile happy to take your money.

I have 3 income streams, so would have to make 13 submissions each year. How can that be said to simplify my affairs!

I looked into software and just didn’t understand it, and none of them seemed to work for all my businesses.

Luckily, I applied for an exemption (which was a traumatic experience in itself!) and got accepted, otherwise heaven knows how I’d have coped…

Reply to the comment left by Hong Kong Phooey at 08/09/2026 – 11:00
I totally agree with the majority of comments here – Making Tax Digital is adding more work, bureaucracy and costs for preciously little or no benefit at all!

How dare these ignoramus deadbeat politicians impose yet more work on landlords? They’re not remotely democratically elected and nearly all of them have never done a job of any substance, let alone run a business.