Updated 17th Jan 2019
Making Tax Digital for VAT will come into effect from April 2019. From that date, businesses with a turnover above the VAT threshold (currently £85,000) will have to:
•keep their records digitally (for VAT purposes only), and
•provide their VAT return information to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) through Making Tax Digital (MTD) functional compatible software
Navigator is registered with HMRC as a Software developer for the MTD programme, and now that the initial public beta of the interfaces with HMRC are available, we are developing the interface required for submitting VAT returns using Making Tax Digital.
The Navigator software updates for submitting VAT returns has now been completed and we are undergoing a process of testing and certification - culminating in the submission of our own VAT return. This is expected to take a few weeks and be complete by early February 2019. At some point during this process, Navigator will be added to the list of products supported by HMRC for VAT submission so that our customers can start to register for submitting returns on the Making Tax digital Platform.
HMRC will have contacted all businessed requesting that you register for the Making Tax Digital Platform. Once we are registered in the supported products list then you will be able to complete registration.
All VAT returns where the VAT quarter starts before the end of March 2019 can be submitted manually as now. The first VAT quarter that is required to be submitted digitally is the first quarter which starts on or after 1st April 2019.
This means that there should be no requirement to submit a VAT return using the MTD platform until August 2019.
We expect the MTD software to be in our software release which completes mid-February with a release date of early March - which will be in plenty of time to roll out to all customers before they require to submit digitally.
For further information, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-tax-digital-how-vat-businesses-and-other-vat-entities-can-get-ready/making-tax-digital-how-vat-businesses-and-other-vat-entities-can-get-ready