Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment - CIOT and ATT survey
12 Dec 2022
Results of a survey of tax professionals carried out by CIOT and the Association of Taxation Technicians in December 2022.
This survey was undertaken in the first half of December 2022. We received 332 responses.
The survey questions, and a summary of the responses (excluding freeform comments), are below:
Q1 - Do you think that Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self-Assessment (ITSA), in its current form, can be successfully introduced from April 2024? [select one]
| Yes | 3% |
| No | 97% |
Q2 - If no, what do you think should happen next? [select no more than two]
| Pause the project, and consult on the future of MTD | 47% |
| Carry on, but on a voluntary basis and only make mandatory when all MTD processes have been proven to work | 31% |
| Announce a blanket deferral and make mandatory at a fixed future date | 8% |
| Carry on, but with a significant increase to the £10k turnover threshold | 29% |
| Carry on, but defer specific groups eg landlords | 14% |
| Other (please specify) | 12% |
Q3 - How do you feel about the following aspects of MTD for ITSA implementation?
| Very comfortable | Generally comfortable | Uncomfortable | |
| Taxpayer awareness | 0% | 6% | 94% |
| Your / agents' awareness | 13% | 63% | 24% |
| Taxpayer ability to comply | 0% | 6% | 94% |
| Your / agents’ capacity and resources to support clients | 2% | 35% | 63% |
| HMRC’s capacity and resources to support taxpayers and agents | 0% | 3% | 97% |
| Availability of suitable software | 5% | 30% | 65% |
| Cost to clients | 1% | 7% | 92% |
| Your / agents’ ability to charge for your time | 2% | 15% | 83% |
| Impact on the 'tax gap' (ie that MTD for ITSA will reduce it) | 2% | 12% | 86% |
| Something else (see 'Other' below) | 3% | 14% | 83% |
Q4 - How useful do you think the following elements of MTD for ITSA will be for businesses?
| Very useful | Somewhat useful | Not useful | |
| Keeping records digitally | 18% | 56% | 26% |
| Digital links between digital records | 12% | 39% | 49% |
| Quarterly reporting (to ensure timely record keeping) | 3% | 33% | 64% |
| The quarterly tax estimate following the quarterly update | 3% | 25% | 72% |
| The End of Period Statement | 8% | 35% | 57% |
| The Final Declaration (aka the tax return) | 34% | 43% | 23% |