Making Tax Digital, Free and Open

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This is a new place for discussing the UK government's Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative. In particular how we as a community can continue to file our taxes freely in terms of both:

Avoiding high fees and vendor lock-in to commercial software
Maintaining user freedoms with free and open source software

We are starting some 'wiki' posts that will answer the main questions and be continually updated from your comments:

Disclaimer: we are not experts and cannot guarantee accuracy here. Always seek your own financial advice.

Our banner is in the public domain and titled "G. Reisch, Margarita philosophica" from the Wellcome Collection (source) It's a medieval illustration showing a woman sitting at a counting table and a man at another table using an abacus.

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IanTwenty@feddit.uk

CIOT, LITRG and ATT express concerns over HMRC’s withdrawal of their online filing service for MTD customers (www.tax.org.uk)

submitted 1 week ago by IanTwenty@feddit.uk to c/makingtaxdigital_freeandopen@feddit.uk

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This is from March 2025. Useful to see other groups concerned at what's happening and an official response. Their concerns:

...included the likely additional costs for taxpayers, risks to compliance, availability of software, and the impacts on unrepresented taxpayers.

Regarding the gov response:

We welcome the Minister’s assurances within this letter to CIOT that the software market will develop the functionality required but await a further update on how the Minister will ensure this functionality to be introduced, and continuously provided, by third party software providers which is outside the direct control of HMRC.

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[–] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Absolutely.

"Make Tax Digital". That's fine - mine has been digital for years. I do my accounts in a spreadsheet (digitally) and at the end of the year I add them up (digitally), and fill in my tax return on the HMRC Website (digitally).

I work out my income and expenses. I send it to HMRC.

Why do I need an extra 3rd company party in the middle? Why should I pay money or give all my personal and account information to a dodgy criminal company, so they can in turn pass it on to HMRC?

[–] IanTwenty@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

Great questions and I agree the word 'digital' is doing a lot of work in the phrase 'making tax digital'