Making Tax Digital for Income Tax
What do I actually send HMRC?
The quarterly update builder. Put in what you earned and spent, and this gives you the exact figures to type into your MTD software — plus the much shorter list of things you can safely ignore. Nothing is sent anywhere; it runs in your browser.
1. Your business
Got both? They are separate income sources and need one update each — run this twice.
2. How much detail do you owe?
3. Your figures for the period
Income
Expenses
What a quarterly update is not
Most of the anxiety around 7 August comes from people assuming it's a mini tax return. It isn't. HMRC is explicit that you make no accounting or tax adjustments before sending one. You can leave all of this until the final declaration in January 2028:
- Capital allowances and the annual investment allowance
- Private-use splits — the "40% of my phone bill is personal" sums
- Year-end journals, accruals, prepayments and stock adjustments
- Losses brought forward, and any relief you're claiming
- Your other income — employment, dividends, savings, pensions
- Working out the tax. A quarterly update never tells you what you owe.
It is a summary of income and expenses for the period, sent from software. HMRC's own description is that it "takes minutes to complete".
Nobody is fined for a late quarterly update this year
HMRC has confirmed a soft-landing for 2026/27 only: no penalty points for late quarterly updates in the first year. A lot of software is being sold this summer on the threat of fines that do not yet exist. Late filing and late payment penalties on the Self Assessment return itself are unchanged and very real — but that is January, not August.
Common questions
When is the first MTD quarterly update due?
The first one covers 6 April to 5 July 2026 and is due by 7 August 2026. HMRC says more than 864,000 sole traders and landlords are in scope of that date. The rest of the year falls on 7 November 2026, 7 February 2027 and 7 May 2027.
Do I really only need two numbers?
If turnover from that source is under £90,000, yes — you can report consolidated totals: one income figure and one expense figure, with no category breakdown at all. Since this year's cohort starts at £50,000 of qualifying income, a large share of everyone filing on 7 August is in exactly that position. The one exception is residential property finance costs, which are always reported separately.
What counts as income and expenses for the period?
The same categories as Self Assessment — the SA103F boxes for self-employment and SA105 for UK property. If you are over £90,000 turnover, switch this tool to "Full categories" and it lists every one of them.
I got an earlier quarter wrong. Do I file an amendment?
No. Quarterly updates are cumulative: each one restates the tax year to date, so simply putting the right year-to-date figures in your next update corrects the earlier one. There is nothing separate to file.
Does a spreadsheet count as digital records?
Yes, as long as it connects to HMRC through bridging software. Your records must be kept digitally from 6 April 2026 and the update must be sent from software — but a spreadsheet plus bridging software is a perfectly legitimate way to do that, and considerably cheaper than most subscriptions.
Do I still file a Self Assessment return?
Yes. Quarterly updates do not replace it. You still make a final declaration for 2026/27 by 31 January 2028 and pay what you owe by the same date.
The bit that makes this a five-minute job
Getting two numbers out of a carrier bag of receipts on 5 August is the hard part — not the sending. If your records are already in a sheet that totals itself, each quarterly update is a copy-and-paste.
- Self Assessment Tax Estimator 2026/27 — know what you owe before January, not after.
- Rental Property ROI & Yield Calculator — including Section 24 and a rate stress test.
- Freelance Day-Rate & Profit Calculator — works backwards from the take-home you want.
- Invoice Tracker & Log — auto paid/outstanding/overdue, with a chase list.
Excel and Google Sheets. Working formulas, not just formatting. They keep the digital records MTD expects — you'll still need bridging software to send the update itself, and we don't pretend otherwise.
See the toolkit — from £9 →Four working spreadsheets. £9 each, or all four for £19, with a 14-day money-back guarantee.