Important change to Making Tax Digital for VAT on 1st April 2020

Making Tax Digital for VAT (MTDfV) came in to effect last year, but carried an exception for the first year only, to allow the use of copy and paste, or other manual entry of data.

The exception ends on 1st April 2020, from then on, a ‘Digital Link’ is required to transfer information between different systems that are used to complete the VAT return.

This could potentially affect any of our customers that are on older systems (pre NAV 2015), or have not yet had the upgrade to add the Making Tax Digital functionality into their system; or are part of a VAT Group and therefore need to combine various companies prior to submission of the VAT Return.

The VAT Notice 700/22 gives more information, we recommend you refer to this key section in full, which states that “all information must be transferred between software programs through a digital link for VAT periods commencing from 1 April 2020.”

If you are using a ‘Bridging Solution’ (usually a spreadsheet) then this may be fine to continue with, if the data is not copied and pasted.

We are able to offer assistance with an ‘export routine’ which allows you to use the VAT Statement Preview functionality in Dynamics NAV/365 Business Central and then export the values for Boxes 1 to 9 as an .xml file, which can be easily imported into another system or appropriate spreadsheet for final submission to HMRC.

If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.