Menu
Sun, 13 July 2025
OPINION All
Health
After the Industrial Strategy: decarbonisation, not deindustrialisation? Partner content
Environment
Environment
Closing the loop: how circular economy can secure our water future Partner content
By WSP
Economy
Cash ISAs: A cornerstone of responsible saving, not a barrier to investment Partner content
Economy
Press releases

IPSE backs House of Lords recommendation to delay Making Tax Digital introduction

IPSE

1 min read Partner content

IPSE, the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, has today supported recommendations from the House of Lords to delay the introduction of mandatory Making Tax Digital for VAT.


The call was one of the key recommendations of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee’s report, ‘Making Tax Digital for VAT: Treating Small Businesses Fairly’, released today.

Simon McVicker, IPSE’s Director of Policy, commented: “We support digitisation of the tax system, but we are worried about the speed of the implementation.

“HMRC’s initial timetable for Making Tax Digital was way too ambitious and targeted the wrong businesses.

“IPSE was grateful to the government for heeding our calls and delaying the initial implementation until 2019.

“However, we are concerned that many self-employed businesses simply don’t know about the new requirements.

“The costs for implementing these changes could be higher than government predictions, so we’d welcome a further delay to give our smallest businesses some extra breathing room.

“A surprisingly large number of very small businesses still keep paper records.

“They don’t have access to in-house accounting and finance departments like bigger businesses and are therefore at greater risk of being disrupted by the new reporting requirements.”

Categories

Economy