[GNC-dev] Gnucash and the UK's "Making Tax Digital" initiative

[David Cousens]

Graham,

>From some discussion on various online sources the HMRC appears to have backed down considerably on some of their
initially ridiculous requirements 
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat
. It would appear that at its simplest if you had a submission platform based on their API (
https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/docs/api/service/vat-api/1.0) which meets the requiremnets for
identifying and authorisation of access and you could "digitally" transfer data from GnuCash to that software e.g. in
the form of a JSON and/or XML nd/or CSV file exported by GnuCash which could be imported directly to that software, with
the required VAT information then that would satisfy the legal requirements. You presumably would be required to keep a
copy of this data file as part of your records. From their website, if you were using a tax agent to submit your returns
and supplied data in such a form to the tax agent who then imported it into his submission software, then that would
meet the requirements. The access program would have to meet all the authorisation requirements. These are discussed
more fully on https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/docs/using-the-hub. There are other API's for a
variety of other tax submissions e.g. income tax etc also documented and these will also have to be digitally submitted
in the future.  The target is clearly a moving one but appears to have become a bit better defined with time. The
information on the site is complex and not that easily navigable but does make some sense.

David Cousens

On Tue, 2018-11-20 at 01:30 +0200, Graham Leggett wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I just learned with some shock that the UK wants to force SMEs to submit VAT returns “via external software packages”
> by 1 April 2019, and presents a list of some 150 packages to choose from. If you’re lucky enough to already be using
> one of those packages, great. If you’re not, you’re facing some disruption.
> 
> Gnucash is not on the list (that I could see).
> 
> We are not in a position to re-engineer our accounts, but we are in a position to submit patches to Gnucash.
> 
> This email is exploratory - is anyone on the gnucash dev list interested in the UK “Making Tax Digital” initiative,
> with the aim of getting Gnucash “on the list” of approved software? Has anyone done any work in this area?
> 
> I am still looking for concrete information on the protocols being used, if anyone has information on that it would be
> useful too.
> 
> Regards,
> Graham
> —
> 
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