Latest Poll Figures Show Small Businesses Still Aren’t Sure About MTD

With YouGov’s latest poll figures released and the deadline for August returns passed, we take a look at how MTD for VAT is shaping up.

502 decision makers from small business with up to 9 employees were polled for the latest YouGov data. 32% of businesses reported that they were now on Making Tax Digital and ready for the change. But 12% said they haven’t heard of the MTD initiative. Separate figures from UHY Hacker Young indicate that 3,680 businesses have missed the August VAT return deadline, with almost 600,000 businesses still to sign up.

Find our handy MTD for VAT toolkit here.

27% of companies polled who have already made the change to MTD for VAT have purchased new accounting software in order to be compliant. 28% reported that they are expecting to spend more money on their tax affairs. With BTCHub you can continue to use your current method of bookkeeping and use the software to bridge the gap to HMRC. You can continue to use Excel, for example, and be MTD-compliant using BTCHub to transfer your VAT totals to HMRC.

Our demonstration on YouTube shows how BTCHub works.

Of the 54% of senior decision makers yet to move to digital tax, a third of these (31%) report that they feel unprepared for the move to digital tax. This is reflected in the fact that 46% have consulted or engaged an accountant to help them prepare for MTD for VAT. For accountants, having a bridging solution means that you are able to accept your clients’ bookkeeping figures from their usual software and use BTCHub as a central VAT management system for your clients’ obligations.

MTD for VAT was introduced for accounting periods starting on or after April 1^st 2019. This means a majority of the 1.2 million affected businesses were due to submit their first quarterly VAT Return on August 7^th. HMRC have already advised that they will not be issuing penalties for businesses that missed the Direct Debit sign up, but there are no updates yet around penalties for missing the deadline for VAT Returns.