[GNC] Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Tax Self-Assessment

Mark alien.technology at gmail.com
Wed Jul 28 08:31:52 EDT 2021


Maf,

I'm prepping to do a DIY corp tax filing next month.  There's a couple of
other repos may be of interest...
- gnucash-ixbrl creates iXBRL reports from GnuCash accounts. I've got this
producing a UK company account and also the corp tax calculation which are
required to be in iXBRL.
- gnucash-uk-corptax takes the above iXBRL files and submits them to the
corptax service. It creates the electronic equivalent of the CT600 record
out of the corp tax calculation.
No warranty.  This all works for me.  Probably.  I'll find out in
September. :)

Oh, just for "fun"...
- ixbrl-to-ct600 writes the numbers into a CT600 PDF so you can print it
out for a paper filing.  Not a huge value to you unless you have exemption
for a paper filing.

Mark.

On Wed, 28 Jul 2021 at 13:19, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:

> Hi Mark & Neil.
>
> thanks for highlighting the github repository - looks interesting, I might
> have a play next month..  I've been using a commercial bridgeing
> spreadsheet
> so far for VAT submission of data from GC, I rather anticipate that the
> next
> step (which, AIUI, is not for Corp Tax (yet)) for the self-assessment
> pages
> will allow similar spreadsheet manipulation and submission.  It seems to
> me
> that they are targetting smaller one-man-band type businesses via the
> personal
> tax return.
>
>
> the direction of travel is clear, though!  Digital APIs wherever possible,
> and
> remove a different sort of digit-al mistake - the fat fingered kind!
>
> regards,
> Maf
>
>
> On Wednesday, 28 July 2021 12:48:36 BST Neil Campbell wrote:
> > Hi Mark
> >
> > Thank you for all that background information which I found to be very
> > informative. I hear, and agree with, you about the complexity of UK
> > Taxation system and the practicality of this, but do wonder how the
> > software developers mentioned on HMRC website got MTD status. I expect
> all
> > they did was to get submission of the unadulterated records without year
> > end adjustments etc linked to HMRC via their API. I was not aware of the
> > HMRC motives, so that was interesting. From what you have said, it may be
> > correct to say that the existing P&L Report would be OK for this
> automatic
> > return. It would just need to be integrated with the HMRC system using
> > their API. But I am not a programmer, so I couldn’t do this.
> >
> > I have put in an enhancement request for this change and will see what
> > happens next. Thank you for your enlightenment.
> >
> > Regards.
> > Neil
> > neilcamp65 at gmail.com
> >
> > > On 28 Jul 2021, at 12:24, Mark <alien.technology at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Neil,
> > >
> > > From what I understand, HMRC's stated aim for Making Tax Digital is to
> > > reduce errors which cost the government tax money. The general approach
> > > consists of (my interpretation): - Making APIs which make it easier for
> > > the right information to be submitted. - Requiring that software
> > > developers that implement the APIs do so by creating submissions
> straight
> > > out of the raw accounts.  Thus, there is no way for the end user to
> > > manipulate the submission data; the data will be accurate (if the
> > > accounts are right) and it's harder to defraud the system.
> > >
> > > I got to see inside the MTD process as I've implemented the MTD VAT
> > > interface for my businesses, taking the account data out of GnuCash. In
> > > order to get this approved for production use, I had an interview with
> an
> > > HMRC engineer, shared my screen and showed the solution at work. It was
> > > relatively painless, but the interviewer wanted to check that the
> general
> > > approach was right, that there was a legal submission containing
> required
> > > text, and that there was no way for the end user to change the
> submitted
> > > data (other than by editing the accounts).  I shared the code on
> GitHub,
> > > Google for gnucash-uk-vat if anyone is interested.
> > >
> > > I would expect that MTD for Corporation Tax submission is going to be
> > > along the same lines i.e. a requirement that the corporation tax return
> > > is automatically derived from accounting records.  I wonder how that
> will
> > > work in reality: VAT accounting is relatively straightforward - the
> same
> > > accounting approach works in lots of different countries. Corporation
> Tax
> > > is a whole different kettle of fish - there are arcane rules specific
> to
> > > the UK: Depreciation, two ways for getting R&D relief, and the way
> > > profit/loss is shifted between tax years to name a few.
> > >
> > > Mark.
> > >
> > > > From April 2023, new laws in UK will require all businesses with a
> gross
> > > > income of in excess of £10,000 to keep digital records for Tax
> returns.
> > > > I think that there are already laws in place for record-keeping and
> > > > submitting VAT digitally direct to HMRC. I am sure that there must be
> > > > thousands of GNUCash users who will be affected.
> > > >
> > > > This may seem a long way away, but can one of the developers please
> > > > confirm that GNUCash either complies already (I can’t find anything
> in
> > > > the Menu’s that relates to VAT or the collection thereof) or the
> matter
> > > > is in hand and GNUCash will comply before April 2023.
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