TaxCalc's MTD Journey

At TaxCalc, we're committed to supporting agents and businesses alike on their digital journey, preparing each for the changes and challenges ahead. We're working hard to make sure that our software provides all the solutions you need to help you comply with MTD's requirements.

Our main focus has been to ensure that you have all you need to make your own MTD journey as simple and hassle-free as possible.

Here's what we've achieved so far in our software:

Self Assessment Pre-Population APIs Phase 1

Although not publically known as relating to MTD, HMRC released a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), that enabled taxpayers and authorised agents to access HMRC data via third party software for pre-populating tax returns.

We responded with enhancements to TaxCalc Tax Return Production, making this task simple and intuitive. All you have to do is select 'Fetch' and the software will request the required information and pull it into the tax return for you. Currently this is the data you can access:

• Employment income and tax deducted
• Benefits in kind received from employment (P11D)
• Pensions (not State pension)
• Incapacity benefit
• Jobseekers allowance
• Tax refunded or set off by HMRC
• Marriage allowance status
• HMRC will confirm if the individual is claiming as a transferor or recipient of the allowance
• Marriage allowance eligibility
• HMRC will confirm if an individual is eligible to make a claim
• National insurance
• Total Class 1 earnings between the primary threshold and upper limit
• Total charge due for Class 2
• Confirm if the maximum contribution level has been reached for the year

Integration with third parties for seamless digital record keeping

Rather than single-handedly conquer the MTD universe, we see our time and investment better spent opening our software up to third parties via APIs to provide a flexible and holistic way for you to comply to HMRC's MTD requirements.

As you'll know, one of these requirements is the need to keep digital records using a spreadsheet or online accounting/bookkeeping software. Our MTD integration platform allows you to pull data from all spreadsheets, plus Xero, FreeAgent and Quickbooks bookkeeping software. These bookkeeping integrations are two-way so, as well as pulling in the trial balance, you are also able to post year-end journals back into the underlying bookkeeping once the accounts are complete.

Making Tax Digital for VAT

TaxCalc VAT Filer bridges the gap between your clients' digital bookkeeping records and your VAT return for submission to HMRC. You can quickly and easily import VAT data from an Excel spreadsheet via a digital link, including CSVs exported from third party software without their own MTD filing capability.

You can also utilise our useful VAT adjustment wizards for fuel scale charges, bad debt relief and correcting errors on previous returns. All your VAT data stored securely in one place.

Making Tax Digital for ITSA (Income Tax Self Assessment)

TaxCalc Business Filer is our new MTD for ITSA bridging solution and upon release will allow our customers to submit quarterly submissions to HMRC. Those familiar with VAT Filer, our MTD for VAT bridging solution, will recognise the simplicity with which those submissions can be made.

For your annual tax filing obligations we will update Tax Return Production to allow you to meet your MTD for ITSA requirements.

Business Filer will be released publicly well in advance of MTD mandation allowing any customers who wish to join the HMRC pilot to do so ahead of the digital start date in April 2026.

MTD Ready Spreadsheets

Although our MTD bridging solutions above can ingest data from any spreadsheet, we have produced our own templates for recording transactions and summarising totals as a starting point for anyone that needs them. The totals can then be imported using VAT Filer (for quarterly MTD for VAT submissions) and using Business Filer (for quarterly MTD for ITSA submissions).

If you would like to download these sample spreadsheets then we have these available for free on our Knowledgebase site.

TaxCalc Product Evolution

Although MTD will mainly affect our income tax and VAT products, we have also evolved the other solutions in our suite to assist customers in preparing themselves for when MTD for ITSA goes live in April 2026.

We have a dedicated area of our website highlighting how we are supporting accountants and how we are supporting businesses with the transition to Making Tax Digital.