IPSE: Government must not make tax more complex for freelancers with MTD
- 21 Jul 2020
IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) has said that the government must not let Making Tax Digital make tax even more complex for freelancers by increasing the frequency of reporting.
Andy Chamberlain, Director of Policy at IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed), said: “In pushing ahead with Making Tax Digital, the government must make sure it does not make tax even more complex for freelancers. In the plans for extending MTD, the government announced that it would consider making tax reporting more frequent. Although this would give the government a more accurate view of incomes, for freelancers, for whom every minute of admin is valuable earning time lost, this could be a significant added burden. The aim of MTD is to make tax simpler for taxpayers and HMRC: it’s not clear to us how more frequent reporting will achieve this.
“It is also right that the government has given advance warning to allow businesses to prepare for the changes to MTD, but it must make sure less technologically literate freelancers have support available if they need. Unlike bigger businesses, freelancers will not have accounts departments that can manage this for them, and many don’t have their own external accountants either. Freelancers are everyone from IT contractors and project managers to plumbers and hairdressers: government must make sure all of them are supported through these changes.”
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