Making Tax Digital - paying to be taxed

PullingTheStrings

I've been self employed for 20 years and in that time have done my own accounts and filed my returns online myself. With MTD coming into play I find it wholly unreasonable that I should have to pay for a software to do the very thing I've done for free so far. Essentially paying to be taxed.

Does anyone else feel this is wrong? I'm aware that there are some free options out there, but they are very limited in scope and having done the HMRC's own questionnaire to filter the best software for my circumstances there were zero free options.

Is paying really the only option?

MattMattMattUK

PullingTheStrings said:

I've been self employed for 20 years and in that time have done my own accounts and filed my returns online myself. With MTD coming into play I find it wholly unreasonable that I should have to pay for a software to do the very thing I've done for free so far. Essentially paying to be taxed.

Does anyone else feel this is wrong? I'm aware that there are some free options out there, but they are very limited in scope and having done the HMRC's own questionnaire to filter the best software for my circumstances there were zero free options.

Is paying really the only option?

If you just want to type some figures in boxes and then submit then the free options are more than adequate, the paid options are mostly proper accounting packages so do a lot more than just allow MTD submissions. 

DE_612183

can't you download a version from HMRC - thats what I used to do - although it was a few years ago...

saajan_12

Agree it seems mad to encourage so many different softwares for small time self employed people and private landlords. Almost tending towards the American model of exploding the accountants industry rather than most people being able to self serve on a website and only complicated setups needing professional help. 

I'm not even that fussed about the cost, I understand it costs money to support software whether thats on the HMRC side or on the individual. But this seems like a very inefficient way to do it. 

tacpot12

I tend to agree with your assertion that there is something wrong with having to pay to be taxed, but most businesses pay for this, and see it as just one of the many costs of doing business. 

If the government was to provide the software to do this, they would a) be setting themselves up as a software provider to service a large number of customers b) subsidising the costs of these customers. Neither of these are 'wrong', but you can see how being the a software provider, and effectively being in competition with other software providers is a difficult decision. Subsidising the costs of small businesses is a question for parliament. 

You do receive tax relief for the cost of the software, but I think you should perhaps receive 100% relief for the cost of the software (upto some limit). There are societal benefits to having tax collected digitally and to small businesses having access to commercial accounting software at no cost.

Perhaps you should write to you MP.