If you are a sole trader, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD for ITSA) changes how you keep records and how often you report, and it arrives in stages by income. The short version: digital records, quarterly updates through compatible software, and your tax return submitted through that software at year end. Here is the timetable as HMRC publishes it, and what to have in place before your date.
For the dates and thresholds on one page, each fact linked to GOV.UK, see Making Tax Digital for sole traders: dates and thresholds.
The dates
- From 6 April 2026: sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000.
- From 6 April 2027: qualifying income over £30,000.
- From 6 April 2028: qualifying income over £20,000, as announced by the government.
"Qualifying income" is your gross income from self-employment and property together, before expenses. HMRC assesses it from the Self Assessment tax return for the relevant tax year: your 2024 to 2025 return decides whether you start from April 2026, your 2025 to 2026 return whether you start from April 2027, and so on. Check your own position on GOV.UK; the rules have moved before and may move again.
What changes
- Digital records. Income and expenses kept in software (or a spreadsheet bridged to software), dated and categorised, not a shoebox reconciled once a year.
- Quarterly updates. A summary of income and expenses sent to HMRC through compatible software four times a year. These are not tax bills; they are updates.
- Your tax return, through your software. After the tax year ends you add any other income, confirm the figures and any adjustments, and submit your tax return through your Making Tax Digital software by 31 January. You still file a Self Assessment return as normal for the tax year before you start.
What to have ready before your date
- Every job and every expense recorded digitally as it happens, with the receipt attached where there is one.
- VAT worked out on what you earn, even if you are not registered, so the £90,000 registration threshold does not surprise you.
- An export you can hand to an accountant, or file from yourself, in a shape HMRC recognises.
What Tradelynx Books does today, and what it does not
Tradelynx Books keeps your income, expenses and receipts as dated, evidenced records with VAT worked out: work done through Tradelynx lands automatically with its provenance, and off-platform work and expenses are recorded with an edit history. That is the MTD-ready part, and it works anywhere in Great Britain.
Tradelynx does not file to HMRC yet. We are not yet HMRC-recognised software, so quarterly submission from inside Books arrives when recognition does; until then you, or your accountant, file from the export. We say this plainly because the difference matters on the day your first quarterly update is due.
Books is £15 per month including any VAT that applies, and free until Tradelynx is HMRC-recognised plus three months. No card to start, and your records stay yours and exportable whatever happens.
Sources
- GOV.UK: Use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (who it applies to, and from when).
- GOV.UK: When to register for VAT (the £90,000 threshold).
- HMRC's list of recognised software, which Tradelynx is not yet on.