Making Tax Digital – Meeting with Edward Troup, Chair HMRC

Liz Maher, in her capacity as President of the South and Mid Wales Chambers of Commerce met with Edward Troup who shared HMRC’s MTD plans.  There was a wide ranging and very open discussion at the meeting in March. Liz chaired the meeting with a range of small businesses, software accountancy package suppliers, accountancy practices and a representative from the new Wales Revenue Authority.

The meeting was a valuable insight into HMRC's thoughts on MTD. From a VAT point of view, one concern is that the MTD process did not reflect, on the VAT reporting, issues that we are seeing coming out of the EU etc.  EU proposals are looking at the role of the Standard Audit File for Tax (‘SAF-T’) for example. The SAF-T is an international standard for electronic exchange of reliable accounting data from organisations to a national tax authority. The standard is defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (‘OECD’).  Liz was not convinced that in terms of VAT reporting all the issues had been thought through – e.g. how do we deal with voluntary disclosures if all VAT data is drawn straight from day book accounting entries? How do businesses deal with VAT adjustment processes required through partial exemption or non-business methods - annual adjustments from Capital Goods Schemes etc.