The soft-landing period for Making Tax Digital for VAT is ending in April 2021 – is your business ready?

When Making Tax Digital (MTD) first came into force, HMRC implemented a ‘soft-landing’ transition period to allow businesses to get their digital links into place. Whilst we are in the soft-landing period, it is still considered acceptable to copy and paste data for your VAT return and HMRC will not be issuing penalties during this period for not keeping complete digital records.

At the beginning of the pandemic, HMRC extended the soft-landing period, which was originally due to end in April 2020, to April 2021. Now, as the soft-landing period is nearing its end, it is key for businesses to ensure that they have adequate digital links in place to ensure compliance with MTD rules.

It will no longer be considered acceptable by HMRC to copy/cut and paste data for your VAT return; proper digital records and links will have to be maintained either using HMRC authorised accounting software or for businesses that maintain their records in a spreadsheet, an HMRC authorised API bridging solution.