Half of taxpayers for Making Tax Digital are unregistered as deadline passes

Great news to hear.
If no one registered, maybe it could force the government to bin this expensive to implement scheme, that even when up and running costs more to run than it makes in tax revenue gained.
If Saint Andy is looking for good ways to save the government money, he could start by ditching this expensive and stupid scheme which was originally dreamt up by George Osborne (natch). C’mon Andy, you made a good start by kicking Digital ID into the long grass, now please nix this daft, hare-brained waste of money. More here. …

https://www.lettingfocus.com/blogs/2026/04/more-on-the-madness-of-making-tax-digital/

Reply to the comment left by David Lawrenson at 11/08/2026 – 10:25
Andy Pandy is far too busy with huge cost saving initiatives. I think he’s saved the average Brit about £50 a year so far….

ACCA info may well be wrong. Many landlords will have sold up due to RRA, etc and many advisors, such as myself, would have converted landlords from joint owners to partnerships, which are outside MTD ITSA, so the true figure of unregistered landlords is probably far lower.

Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 11/08/2026 – 12:14
Good point, thanks

Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 11/08/2026 – 12:14
I think £50 net saving is generous. I think Mr. Burnham would save the taxpayer far more money if he ditched the Labour Landlord Database. This may have originally been proposed by another government, but just as the Labour Renters Rights Act is nothing like earlier rental reform bill proposals, the Labour Landlord Database will be both a disaster, and a waste of money if somebody doesn’t kill it now. It will push up rents and cost money.

On Making Tax Digital: For everybody that has set up their own business from scratch (most labour MPs have never done this and neither did George Osborne) the way it works is that you work all week and do some of your admin at the weekend because about 1/3 of your workload is admin, mostly chasing creditors. But things go quiet over Christmas and New Year so this gives you time to work out your real revenue net of bad debts and expenses when everybody is getting pissed and overeating, so that you can get your figures to the accountant at the beginning of January and you can then get your tax return submitted and tax paid by the end of January.

That’s the real world for a self-employed plumber, electrician, builder, tradesperson. It’s not very different for the real world as a small portfolio landlord. Most labour MPs live in fairyland.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 11/08/2026 – 15:30
100% agree.
They live in their own heads… straight from uni to some think tank, then on to government… most never worked, if they have worked, too many have been lawyers.

Reply to the comment left by David Lawrenson at 11/08/2026 – 16:03
Why would you understand something you have never done? Many landlords will have experience of meeting tradespeople who only want to take cash. Parts of the economy suffered because of [the government response to] the covid outbreak when people moved away from cash….taxi drivers who were taking cash for example.

But the Making Tax Digital project does nothing to tackle this. In fact, the way in which HMRC is implementing Making Tax Digital is creeping up on the small business person, putting a pillow on his head and leaning on it. The project is creating an incentive to take cash, whilst only penalising the compliant people who face an increased burden of admin: That’s why so many accountants and book keepers support it.

Instead what Labour should do is can the Making Tax Digital project. If a small proportion of people they can’t track take cash it’s better just understanding that this is the real world and allowing small business to grow to the point that small businesses have to get a bookkeeper, accountant, incorporate and claim roll-over relief. If a small number of people take cash it’s better than claiming more benefits.

If government wants to make a success of any digitalisation project it needs to completely ditch quarterly returns and stick to end of January (as a limited company can). Instead it needs to work out how digitalisation can make sure that a small business can invoice a big business and get paid promptly, then small businesses will want to do it.

But why would any labour MP ever understand that? Maybe they should ask a plumber, electrician, carpenter, bricklayer….

Really hope that due to this chaos, further implementation will be delayed.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 11/08/2026 – 17:45
I really hope that they stop this nonsense. Like the landlord database it is only there to persecute the mostly compliant in order to raise more tax or penalties more quickly from the well-meaning but unwary.

I run a small business that has never taken cash. Occasionally HMRC or a utility company will send me a cheque and I cash these electronically on my phone. But I cannot remember when a customer sent me a cheque. It’s probably more than 15 years ago.

But if you are self-employed or doing hospitality or retail work and you increase the amount of cash you take versus money you take electronically this improves your cash flow position because (a) you have more cash immediately (b) the level of stated profits is lower and whether somebody is trying to tax you quarterly or six-monthly this reduces the amount of tax you have to pay on account. In fact, the MTD proposal is going to tax you on profits you haven’t even earned. This is a really stupid bit of short-termism and nobody who had any understanding of growing an economy would be doing it.

Instead, they need to ditch the proposal and work out how they can use digitalisation to ensure that small companies get paid quickly if they use digitalisation methods rather than cash.

At the moment for many people, cash has the upper hand doesn’t it?