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Over 100,000 people haven't signed up for Making Tax Digital yet

ended 26. June 2026

An analysis of HMRC figures by the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) suggests that just over half of the 216,000 unrepresented taxpayers who have to take part in Making Tax Digital (MTD) from April 2026 have still not registered more than two months after its launch. 

From April 2026, taxpayers with gross income of more than £50,000 from self-employment and/or rental income in the 2024/25 tax year are legally required to use MTD.

The threshold will drop to £30,000 from April 2027 and to £20,000 from April 2028.

Of the 216,000 unrepresented taxpayers HMRC expect to be in scope for this year, around 111,000 have still to register. 

This figure represents around 52% of the unrepresented taxpayer population.

Taxpayers need to keep digital records, submitting quarterly updates of their income and expenses, and filing an annual tax return.

  • Do people just not know about this?
  • How important is it to get sorted?
  • Why do you think the figures of people signing up is so low?

Responses asap.
 

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Bob SinghVerified
Founder at Chess Mortgages
MTD is yet another ill thought out policy designed to put off small businesses from expanding to higher levels of turnover because what waits are more time spent of filing returns and more accountancy fees.

The inclusion of rents in this £50k pa limit makes no sense. Anyone with 2/3 properties will now have to file their returns 4 times a year.

On one hand HMRC doesn’t see BTL as a business and yet they want it to be included in you turnover !

Whilst the idea maybe to drive everyone to trading as limited companies HMRC haven’t really thought about how to make it easier for portfolio landlords to transfer legal titles into a limited Co without a convoluted route as well as the stamp duty and CGT hits. This unclarity led to many schemes being devised to avoid these charges.

I fear this scheme will also do the same.

The accountants will be overworked and HMRC who are already under resourced will have to spend millions checking the returns and the tax take may not rise!



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Matthew KnightVerified
Chief Freelance Officer at Freelancing.Support
New policies need to come with better communication, education and support. This is the biggest change in over 20 years in how tax is reported, yet awareness, action and readiness is painfully low for those who don't have accountants.
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Dr Marianne TrentVerified
Clinical Psychologist at Good Thinking Psychology
Honestly, as a business owner who IS registered for MTD I'd say it's all been pretty confusing! I have an accountant and so even though I received a letter from the HMRC telling me about it I wrongly assumed my registration would be handled by my accountant. It could well be that other businesses have also assumed the same!

Thankfully I did manage to register before the sign up deadline BUT exactly what lays In store for my first regular return next month I'm not quite sure. It feels a little bit like at this stage I am just hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that Xero does it all for me!

I personally and professionally find it a bit disheartening that this extra step has been added as I was already reporting and paying my tax correctly so it feels a little bit of an unnecessary hurdle for already law abiding companies.
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Colette MasonVerified
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
What gets measured gets managed, and quarterly reporting should at least stop the annual panic and nasty tax shock a few of my fellow business owners seem to end up with.

If only the same pathological pursuit from HMRC were applied to bigger companies and their forensic approach to minimising tax and covering their financial tracks. I suspect that might be more lucrative and rather more electorate friendly than picking at the soft underbelly of people grossing £50k.

Looking at the thresholds falling sharply in subsequent years, this starts to look like a very expensive way to claw back relatively trivial sums from small businesses, while much larger, deliberately obfuscated arrangements remain rather more comfortable in the long grass.

How much more patience do small business owners have? Because this lack of participation doesn't mean apathy. It means businesses already on the breadline are struggling to keep their heads above water. They don't need another kicking from the taxman.