It’s Tax Season Again. Why the Same People Are Always Late and Why MTD Should Finally End the January Madness
We are deep into tax madness season and every January, the same story plays out. Accountants brace themselves and a familiar group of taxpayers suddenly “just need a bit longer” to finalise getting their records sorted.
What’s interesting isn’t that people are late it’s who is late. Because it’s usually the same people. Every year.
The psychology of last-minute tax filers.
I think some people are wired in all areas of life to deal with things as early as possible, these are the clients eager to get going as soon as the 6th April arises. They don’t like uncertainty and vale organisation. They want to know their tax commitments and be as prepared as possible to meet them by HRMC deadline.
Another group of people are deadline driven. As the 31st January looms, emails from their accountants become stronger in wording and the threat of a HMRC late filing penalty hangs over them they spring into action. From April to December they are viewing the consequences of not filing as “low risk”
Why Making Tax Digital should resolve everything
The introduction of Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (commences April 26 for those with £50k plus revenue) should ease the January cliff edge pressure. Clients will be mandated to submit quarterly so after Q4 is filed by the 7th August each year then the majority of the self assessment is known with just any “non self employment or property income” sections to resolve.
You don’t hear much positive said about MTDIT but for me this is definitely a big one!!