Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

Fewer than three-tenths of those required to sign up for quarterly software-based Making Tax Digital (MTD) reporting for the latest tax year that started this month have done so, according to HM Revenue & Customs. The UK tax collector told The Register that more than 219,000 people have signed up to MTD for income tax, up from …

[Headley_Grange]

In my experience it's good to have April as the end of the tax year, although UK companies can choose any dates for their accounting years. When I worked for a US company in the UK our tax year ended on 31 Dec which meant a crap time for a whole bunch of people. Account managers, project managers, anyone in finance and even engineers if they were needed to finish something to claim a delivery. It often felt malicious with the yanks seeming to take the view that if they had to ruin their Christmas then so must we. A couple of colleagues had holidays cancelled at the last minute in order to come to the office between Christmsa and NY to chase cash payments from their customers even though everyone knew that the customers closed down over Christmas.

[AMBxx]

I have friends working in Professional Indemnity insurance. That still works on a calendar year basis. Not great at year end but they're senior enough now to dump on others.

[Daniel Bower]

Senior Professional Indemnity Underwriter here

Bar a couple of specific professions (lawyers being the main one and even they're slowly changing), PI policies start whenever and generally run for 12 months.l - much like your home or car insurance.

Lawyers used to all renew on 1 October so that was difficult for those that did lawyers and it's still very busy. I've never gone near them. A good chunk have shifted to a 1/4 renewal now that's a busy day too.

The 31 Dec is a very quiet day for renewals. I had a couple of policies that renewed then and even one on Christmas Day however renewals are spread nicely throughout the year.

Any policy that renews anywhere between 15 Dec and 10 Jan can be a pain though as the London Market pretty much shuts up shop so if it's a complex risk that needs marketing it can be an arse.

24 years and counting as a PI underwriter...

[Roland6]

> which meant a crap time for a whole bunch of people.

I remember working for a UK client, with a Christmas shutdown, where we had to arrange access between Christmas and new year, just so that IBM could deliver a new Z-Series before the end of their tax year.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they negotiated a good discount.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all to do with revenue recognition. Two of the most important words in a salesman's vocabulary. :-)

[Roland6]

It was £1, with the rest bundled into the annual fees package…

[Dwarf]

Ahh, I've seen that tactic too.

We were smart enough to just laugh in their face and say no.

[Roland6]

They already had 6 IBM mainframes and no one blinked when we suggested adding another for improved resilience and simpler maintenance.

From my point-of-view it brought to an end the indecision on whether to buy IBM or Sun. Whilst I preferred Sun, Sun just didn’t understand the level of engagement they needed to make to establish a “bridgehead”, in comparison the IBM account tech lead seemed to have ready access to knowledgeable experts and pro-actively turned our queries around.

From a personal learning point-of-view, I learnt a lot about Parallel-Sysplex and thus really appreciated just how weak in comparison the Unix and Windows versions were. It also forced a very clean n-tier solution, which in hindsight was very easy to secure from “mischievous” web access.

[Acrimonius]

After a while you also tend to adjust your planning and aim for mid Dec as your deadline

[mark l 2]

MTD = Making tax difficult

"Making Tax Digital will make it easier for sole traders and landlords to get their tax right by providing a more real-time overview of their finances, freeing up their time to focus on growing their business,"

Yes because making business owners have more red tape and paperwork to do and having to spend money on tax software they didn't previously require, always frees up time to focus on their business!

[Like a badger]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Fundamentally MTD has the admitted primary intention of increasing the tax take from smaller businesses. Why expect Amazon, Microsoft or Facebook to pay their share when you can hound small companies and unincorporated traders? From HMRC's view, small businesses are all serial tax dodgers, and more frequent digital reporting will make tax avoidance and evasion far more difficult.

Part of the Labour party's core strategy of Britain taxing its way to prosperity, although to be fair, the Tories were doing the same, and were the initiators of MTD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

"From HMRC's view, small businesses are all serial tax dodgers, and more frequent digital reporting will make tax avoidance and evasion far more difficult."

HMRC may have a point. I've had a heating and hot water system replaced for 4.5k for cash, another gas fitter offered "with and without" prices for servicing and even issued a confirmation statement for cash work undertaken (!). Double glazing fitted 7k for cash, my local garage will do stuff for cash if customers will forgo all paperwork. We all know that this is entirely normal, and HMRC staff and Treasury officials will know this full well. MTD is a precursor to squashing the cash in hand economy. People may or may not see that as welcome, but that's what is going on here.

I think cash in hand SME need to have a careful think about this, but I don't think they realise they're on notice. When HMRC start investigations and enforcement they'll be hanging a few people out to dry as an example to the rest, and for the unlucky that could include a free stay at one of His Majesty's residential establishments, and/or house-losing settlements for evaded tax.

[herman]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

To make up for the added red tape, accounting and software expenses, these small businesses will now have to do even more off the books cash work.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

This is the "I saw a few dodgy plumbers, therefore all small businesses are crooks" line of reasoning. Swap in any other demographic and the logical structure becomes immediately obvious: "I've personally witnessed X members of group Y doing Z, therefore group Y deserves heightened surveillance." We'd rightly reject that in any other context.

A few things worth unpacking:

The plural of anecdote is not data. Yes, some tradespeople offer cash discounts. Some salaried employees also inflate expense claims, landlords under-declare rental income, and eBay resellers never file a return. Cherry-picking one segment and presenting it as uniquely dishonest is confirmation bias dressed up as worldly wisdom.

And the "cash discount" itself doesn't even mean what this person assumes it means. Card processors take anywhere from 1.5% to 3%+ per transaction — on a £4,500 boiler install, that's £70–£135 the tradesperson either absorbs or passes on. On top of that, card payments can take days to actually land in the business account, and when you're a sole trader who needs to pay the merchants for parts tomorrow morning, that delay isn't a minor inconvenience - it's a cash flow problem. A plumber can't ring Screwfix and say "Visa says the money's in transit, can you hold my order until Thursday?" Offering a cash price is often just passing the processor's margin to the customer and keeping the business solvent between jobs. It's not evidence of tax evasion, it's basic arithmetic and operational reality. The poster saw a lower price, assumed criminality, and never once considered that the payment infrastructure itself might be the problem. Funny how the instinct is always to suspect the bloke with the van rather than the payment oligopoly skimming a percentage off every tap and sitting on the float for several days earning interest.

The real tax gap isn't in someone's kitchen - but you wouldn't know that from how HMRC allocates its enforcement resources. HMRC's published tax gap figures are themselves a product of systemic bias: large corporates essentially self-report through negotiated compliance frameworks, and HMRC takes their word for it. A multinational with a Big Four accountancy firm and a cooperative relationship with HMRC gets the benefit of the doubt. A sole trader gets a compliance check. The result is a tax gap dataset that structurally undercounts corporate avoidance - because you can't find what you've decided in advance not to look for - while meticulously cataloguing every undeclared cash job. It's the fiscal equivalent of only policing one neighbourhood and then citing the arrest statistics as proof that's where all the crime is. Meanwhile, the same multinationals routing royalties through Ireland, the Netherlands, and Bermuda will shift more in a single quarter than every self-employed gas fitter in the country combined manages in a decade - but that doesn't show up in the gap data because nobody with the authority to look is looking. MTD is the logical endpoint of this worldview: add compliance cost to the people least equipped to absorb it, leave the structures that actually haemorrhage revenue entirely untouched, and call it modernisation.

Follow the money geographically. When a local tradesperson gets paid cash, that money recirculates: it goes to the builders' merchant down the road, the café on the high street, the local childminder. When a corporation shifts profit offshore, it exits the economy entirely and sits in a jurisdiction whose main export is brass nameplates. The macroeconomic harm isn't even comparable.

The "free stay at His Majesty's residential establishments" bit is telling. There's a particular relish some people take in fantasising about small business owners being made examples of - losing houses, going to prison - that you almost never see directed upward at the structures doing orders-of-magnitude more damage. It's punching down framed as civic responsibility. The enthusiasm for enforcement is curiously selective: heavy surveillance and custodial threats for the sole trader, but for the multinational? A quiet settlement, no admission of wrongdoing, and at worst some mid-level executive "stepping down" with a severance package worth more than most small businesses turn over in a lifetime. Nobody loses their house. Nobody gets a custodial sentence. Nobody gets named and shamed as an example to the rest. The full weight of the state's enforcement apparatus is reserved for people who can't afford to fight it.

What's really going on is a very old impulse: resenting visible, relatable success. A self-employed person doing well is proximate enough to provoke envy - "they look like me, but they're doing better, so they must be cheating." A corporation's tax arrangements are abstract, boring, and involve acronyms nobody wants to learn, so they attract far less emotional energy. The result is that public anger gets aimed precisely where it does the least good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

That rant is tilting at quite a lot of windmills, Don Elsergio.

As a starter, I didn't posit that all small and micro-businesses are crooks, I simply gave real world examples. As it happens the boiler and heating system wasn't cash it was a cheque, but made out to a third party non-trade individual at his request to keep it out of the view of the Revenue; Maybe you'd like to propose a mechanism by which the guy was in fact being open, honest, and legal? But that apart, it was the same as the other cash payments, where people were wanting hard cash, and in most of those cases I personally know the traders, so I know that it's off the books.

Then you're off on a whole load of non-sequiturs, like assuming I'm taking joy that small businesses will be picked over and made an example of. Simply wrong, but a reality that will transpire (HMRC took on another 5,000 enforcement officers across last year, what do you think that's for? Especially since Parliament gave them a kicking for not doing enough prosecutions the previous year. It is also a fact that people are routinely imprisoned for VAT fraud, just do a search on the matter, and are likely to be subject to a proceeds of crime order - if they don't have the means to settle, then it could be the house will go, again do some research. And then we get to your punchline, success envy. What a load of bollocks. I don't envy grafters making a success of their business, and by paying in the ways I have I have condoned their methods, so where's that success envy?

So off you trot, maybe role out a long rambling polemic about something else that's burning your soul? What about King Donald? You can't be neutral on him, so whether against or for, it could give you the emotional fuel for a book.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Don't underestimate the degree to which paperwork and bureaucratic burdens also drive tax resistance, especially among small traders. It's not always about the money itself.

I'll propose two mechanisms:

1. Whoever deposited that check paid taxes on the money run through a bank account, and settled up with the tradesman later. Perhaps not, and perhaps it was at the wrong rate. I don't know, but I've seen plenty of that before.

2. The tradesman who did the work can't deposit the check because they don't have a bank account, and they don't have a bank account because they're scared of immigration. (welcome to the US)

The people concerned that a plumber isn't paying every cent due also need to be concerned with the plumber himself, who should be spending his time.....plumbing. Paperwork isn't adding value to society. It's overhead, and we need to be concerned with minimizing it. Tax resistance goes way down when compliance is easy, complexity is low, time burdens minimal, accountancy costs cheap, and tax rates fair. The plumber who's struggling to pay his bills knows that every hour wasted with paperwork is an hour he's not earning income doing something useful.

VAT is rife with evasion. Property tax, not so much.

Yeah, I can see problems with attitudes towards the folks who brought us TV licensing. That useless waste of time and bureaucratic overhead could be eliminated if everyone just paid a slightly higher income or property rate to fund the BBC.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

The cumulative effect of layering compliance obligations onto sole traders and micro-businesses is to make self-employment progressively less viable. Every quarterly digital submission, every compatible software subscription, every hour spent on admin that used to be a single annual self-assessment - that's time and money that doesn't scale down. For a multinational with a finance department it's a rounding error. For a few-man plumbing outfit it's evenings and weekends that used to be either earnings or rest.

The agenda is consolidation: independent working-class people building wealth outside of corporate structures makes certain interests very uncomfortable, and the surest way to stop it is to make independence uneconomic.

Make compliance so burdensome and so expensive that a sole trader eventually concludes it's easier to just go and work for British Gas or Pimlico Plumbers and the likes, where someone else handles the paperwork. The tradesperson no longer deals with HMRC - but they also no longer set their own rates, keep their own margins, or build their own equity. They become labour for someone else's balance sheet. The customer pays more, the worker earns less, and the corporation in the middle captures the difference.

[midgepad]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

The TV Reception licence fee is one of our very few hypothecated taxes.

I'm 8n favour of runn8ng a lot of fees through the Treasury, rather than charging the end-using individual, mostly for reduction of effort and cost, but less so for that one.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

You say you didn't posit that all small businesses are crooks, but your original comment opened with "HMRC may have a point" in treating them as serial tax dodgers, then offered your personal anecdotes as supporting evidence, then concluded with a fantasy about custodial sentences and house seizures. If that wasn't a generalisation, it was doing an exceptional impression of one.

Your cheque-to-a-third-party story is a curious escalation. In your original comment it was "4.5k for cash" - now suddenly it's a cheque made out to a third party, with the tradesperson helpfully narrating his own criminal intent to a customer he barely knows. You specified "non-trade individual" as though that's a smoking gun, but people sell things privately all the time - there are countless ordinary reasons a business might direct a payment to an individual. There is nothing in what you've described that is, on its face, fraudulent or even unusual. People just don't see the tradesperson logging the transaction in their accounting software once they get home or workshop - so they assume it never happens.

Which is presumably why you needed to add the bit about him telling you it was "to keep it out of the view of the Revenue" - because without that narrative gloss, it's just a mundane commercial arrangement. And that's the part that really doesn't hold up. A tradesperson you're paying supposedly volunteered, unprompted and in plain language, that the purpose of this payment method was tax evasion. To a customer. A stranger. Just casually narrated his own fraud. In your original comment this was a simple cash job. Now it's a cheque (and who uses cheques these days? Bet you've been waiting for this moment to whip it out your whole life) with a backstory, a specifically non-trade third party, and a spoken confession. The story got more elaborate precisely when the original cliché failed to land - which tells you everything about where this anecdote actually came from.

You call the structural arguments non-sequiturs, but pointing out that enforcement is disproportionately aimed at small business while corporate avoidance goes largely unchallenged isn't a non-sequitur - it's the entire context your original comment was missing. You can't cheerfully discuss MTD as a mechanism for "squashing the cash in hand economy" and then act surprised when someone points out that the cash in hand economy is a rounding error compared to what walks out the door through legitimate-looking corporate structures.

On the 5,000 enforcement officers: yes, exactly. What do I think that's for? It's for easy wins.

Parliament gave HMRC a kicking for not doing enough prosecutions - but nobody in that chamber was asking why Big Four's clients weren't being raided. The pressure was always downward. So HMRC hired 5,000 people to go after targets that can't fight back. A sole trader with a shoebox of receipts folds in months. A multinational with Deloitte on retainer ties HMRC up in correspondence for years and settles for pennies on the pound with no admission of liability. If you were a newly hired enforcement officer with a conviction target to hit, which door would you knock on? The 5,000 officers aren't proof that HMRC is finally getting serious about tax compliance - they're proof that it's easier to kick in the door of a self-employed electrician in Basildon than to pick a fight with a magic circle law firm billing £1,500 an hour to make sure HMRC never gets past the lobby.

Yes, people get imprisoned for VAT fraud. Nobody disputes that. The question is why the full apparatus of criminal prosecution is deployed against a plumber who didn't register for VAT, while a corporation that shifted nine figures through a Dutch sandwich gets a negotiated settlement and a polite letter. You keep presenting the existence of enforcement as though it validates the targeting. It doesn't.

You say success envy is bollocks, and that you've condoned these methods by paying cash yourself. Let's take that at face value for a moment. You knowingly participated in what you're now describing as criminal behaviour, benefited from the lower prices, and are writing with visible enthusiasm about the same people facing imprisonment and asset seizure. That's enjoying the service and then calling the police. If you genuinely believed these transactions were fraudulent at the time, you were complicit. If you didn't, then you've retrospectively recast ordinary transactions as criminal to support an argument.

But honestly, I'm not sure we need to resolve that contradiction, because the more this conversation progresses, the less your anecdotes hold together. The cash job became a cheque. The cheque was to a non-trade individual. The tradesperson helpfully narrated his own fraud to a paying customer. You have remarkably detailed knowledge of HMRC enforcement headcount, parliamentary oversight cycles, and proceeds of crime order mechanics. Most people paying a gas fitter don't come away with a dossier. The whole thing reads less like a frustrated consumer sharing lived experience and more like someone from a revenue-adjacent policy shop stress-testing talking points to manufacture public consent for MTD. If the Behavioural Insights Team needed a forum post to soften the ground for the next round of compliance theatre aimed squarely at the self-employed, it would read a lot like your original comment.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Found the person rehearsing his story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

I bought a new custom exhaust fire one of my cars last year. I was offered a choice: £600 if I paid the company who make it or £500 if I transferred it to the company owner's brother's personal account. That sound fair and square to you? Because you sound either very, very innocent or shady as fuck

[Ian Johnston]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

The singular of "data" is "anecdote".

[Ian Johnston]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Your claim is easy to check. If cash discounts are being legitimately offered, they will come with the same paperwork - receipts, guarantees and so on - as other forms of payment, just with a lower price.

[jbth]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

This.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Well said.

A primary aim of government in this country seems to be to hound small businesses out of existence with tax, tax, tax and as much red tape as possible (some regulation is of course needed, but there now seems to be a whole swathe of government intent on creating more and more indefinitely).

The level of taxation now across the board (on individuals as well) is ridiculous, and taxing harder seems to be the clueless government's approach to filling its coffers as it's bereft of any ideas for promoting meaningful economic growth. Plus of course it is highly selective about who it goes after - small businesses seem to be regarded as fair game, but when it comes to the big multinationals, forget it!

[Richard Pennington 1]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

"One MP fiddles his/her expenses, therefore all MPs fiddle their expenses". Oh, wait ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Cash in hand isn't always about avoiding the tax. It's also about avoiding additional fees levied by payment providers etc and reducing admin overhead.

Of course some folks take cash to dodge the taxes, but I would say the tax evasion angle is probably less likely than just speeding things up and making things efficient. With cash in hand, you don't have to wait for transactions to clear, you don't have the threat of money being frozen while the bank "checks it out" and does the relevant "KYC and AML" etc etc.

In some situations now, it can be more expensive to pay in cash...like buying a car for example...you tend to find that trying to pay cash for a car (over a certain value, your 10 year old used Fiat Panda not withstanding) tends to be more expensive. The last car I bought, it was cheaper to take out the finance deal on it then pay the finance off immediately...it was around 15% cheaper in fact. It was the only way to pay below RRP in my case.

As for enforcement, HMRC is already backlogged and understaffed...I doubt they have the resources to enforce anything on puny cash in hand businesses. It'll most likely just be fines at worst.

Finally, all of this is why you pay for a proper accountant...one that carries insurance. They aren't just there to ensure your books line up, they are also there because they probably have a pretty good idea whats going on in your local tax authority and can give you a heads up and if the shit hits the fan, their insurance covers your legal costs and any fines you may accrue. Your accountant isn't just your bean counter, they are your firewall.

[Roland6]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

> Your accountant isn't just your bean counter, they are your firewall.

It’s (wryly) funny how many do treat the Accountant as the bean counter (ie. Book keeper/accounts clerk) and thus fail to get the full value.

With Charity VAT and the changes/clarifications that came in a couple of years back, having a Chartered Accountant as a sounding board is very helpful, plus we have an audit trail documenting the agreements and rationale as to why we do VAT in a particular way (ie. Why certain projects/work are subject to VAT, whilst other isn’t and how this difference is recorded in the books), which given how grey/open to interpretation(*) some parts of the VAT code is very reassuring , as the last thing you want is for HMRC to decide you’ve underpaid VAT and decide to backdate the underpayment 20 years (yes, you may only need to keep income tax records for 7 years, but with VAT the Revenue can go back 20 years…)

(*) Determining whether a “grant/gift/award” is a donation or actually a payment for services is a bit like IR35 and the after the event determination of whether a job is inside or outside…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Precisely, your accountant is basically an extra member of staff. That's why they cost what they cost...they're only expensive if you get them to do your returns, if you use them like accountants, they're actually really good value for money. It's probably the cheapest advice you can get and cheapest legal cover available.

Don't get me started on VAT...it's been a while since I needed to be VAT registered, but last time I was the form was incredibly stupid. That one box "Balanced owed by you or HMRC"...why couldn't it be two boxes? The number of times that turned into a massive cock up was more than I care to remember. That one box caused me so many problems over the years...and it put HMRC on full display when it went wrong. If they thought you owed them, they would chase you like a pack of wolves, threats, deadlines etc etc...yet when they owed you, it would take them absolutely ages to pay up especially if they had made a mistake (which they do quite often with VAT).

[LucreLout]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

The irony of course is that you can't do anything about the cash in hand economy.

Take it to the extreme and make pounds digital only. Cool, everyone will cash in hand using USD instead.

The only thing that can actually work is to reduce the tax burden while increasing the penalties for being caught, thereby making evasion unappealing.

Half of what HMRC perceive as missing isn't evasion though, it's actually just common tax avoidance, which is both legally and morally correct.

Again, that can be addressed in the manner I described but not with this nonsense approach of needing paid for software and quarterly reporting.

[midgepad]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

So, part of the Tory strategy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: part of the Tory strategy

Yet we have had a Lab Government for around 1.75 years so it is part of Labour policy by default. Yes, the Tories might have started it but most of the time the Treasury works to its own timelines and rules. Look at IR35. Governments since the early days of New Lab under Blair have kept it in place despite widespread condemnation.

On a personal note, I received £200 winter fuel last December. Now HMRC want it back because of a [cough][cough] tax rebate, my income went £23.45 over the £35,000 limit. The rebate was just £76.21. FSCK HMRC. I had no control about getting the fuel rebate and the tax rebate arrived in January. So I'm worse off because of HMRC juggling figure. The giveth with on hand and taketh more with the other one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

I think it would be more accurate to say that it's part of the Uniparty strategy! Doesn't matter which arse-cheek is currently holding the reins!

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

I came to say the same. How is moving from one to four submissions per annum freeing up anybody's time?

[Like a badger]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Isn't it five submissions? AIUI the annual return is still required as well as four quarterlies.

And for those who haven't been paying much attention, although businesses have to put up their tax details on those five submissions, MTD won't mean they're paying tax more frequently. Government still intend to collect business tax yearly in arrears. Perhaps some future chancellor will decide that SME business should pay their tax quarterly, but that isn't the plan now, so MTD is purely about giving business more homework, in the hope that tax diddlers will find that so burdensome they'll come clean and pay a lot more tax or around £800m a year by 2028 IIRC.

Not much of a business case really.

[AMBxx]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

SMEs are already paying tax 'on account', that just means they're paying in advance on the assumption they'll earn the same as last year.

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Individuals too.

[Dom 3]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

For corporation tax HMRC offer a pretty good interest rate if you pay early. The banks offer business savings accounts which look better - at least to begin with.

[CB__]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

They used to - not so much anymore, sadly.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Not much of a business case really.

Except for more money (tax deductable) being spent on accountants. It might end up costing HMRC tax revenue while padding the incomes of thousands if not millions of bean counters. Could this be preparation for Rachel from Accounts to get a new job when her time is up?

[Roland6]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

> Perhaps some future chancellor will decide that SME business should pay their tax quarterly, but that isn't the plan now

“Perhaps”? More like “definitely”, HMRC want to move away from getting lots of tax revenue once or twice a year to a more consistent stream. If you are already paying VAT quarterly, paying tax quarterly isn’t that bigger step, only issue is the money will no longer be invested on your behalf so you do need to get your pension and other tax efficiency schemes up and running. Which has the consequence of increasing your OPEX…

[Acrimonius]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

How is it also more effective in finding tax evasion?

[Ian Johnston]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

It depends on the total time required.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

I already "do tax" digitally. I have an annual spreadsheet, with boxes on one page with the numbers I need to type into the HMRC website. Nothing more is needed.

Having to do quarterly returns won't "save me time", it will add to my workload, and rush me. Instead of nine months to get around to doing my annual return, I have three weeks to get a quarterly return in.

The only "digital tax software" I need is Excel. I made an effort to try and track down how I can just upload the needed details, but everything funnels me into "sign up to our free stuff, give us your bank account details and...." Sorry? Bank account details? **** OFF! Luckily I'll have paid my mortgage off in a couple of years and will be able to afford to stop doing paid work, so this will just result in me being forced out of the employment market - in the middle of screams from employers screaming that they can't find any staff.

[LucreLout]

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

They've made it so complicated and needlessly expensive that I've shuttered my side hustle that ran as a ltd for liability reasons more than tax.

It might not make a big dent on GDP but it's definitely nudging it in the wrong direction, as that effort now simy doesn't happen.

[Missing Semicolon]

Rude

It was massively rude to force people to buy software to basically fill forms in. Self-assessment has a reasonably competent web service, why could they not make one for small traders?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Rude

And is there a Linux version of the software?

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Rude

Does Linux offer wine and stake dinner to curious civil servants?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

Most seem to be web based. People have moved away from on-premise server installs.

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: Rude

There are free ones. They all seem to be web based though so HMRC are probably not the only ones looking at your submissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

This seems to be a reasonable listing of free/with free-tier packages, complete with a link to the GOV.UK – MTD‑compatible software finder:

https://stewartaccounting.co.uk/best-free-bookkeeping-software-uk/

The use of MTD bridging software can enable the use of spreadsheets, although you do need to research platform (Windows/Linux/Mac), software (MS Excel, OO Calc or .csv) and layouts (specific accounting spreadsheet formats that are supported out of the box) compatibility. I did come across one (recommended by another ElReg reader) that did support custom spreadsheet layouts (ie. Workbooks you had created yourself) and platforms other than Windows/Excel but I’ve mislaid the reference…

[malfeasance]

Re: Rude

https://github.com/ac000/itsa

Commandline tooling. Requires you to sign up for your own HMRC developer key (or whatever) as detailed in the issues.

Precisely the kind of thing that someone could write a windows print driver to wrap so that, well lets just say let the fun times ensue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

> "It’s important to point out that itsa will send various headers to HMRC with various bits of information such as your IP addresses, MAC addresses, OS username, a unique device ID."

Hard pass.

[FIA]

Re: Rude

You don't have a choice.

Why do you object given the context of the data you're submitting?

What aspect of your privacy are you protecting from a government agency that knows exactly who you are?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

There is no scenario in which I will ever install government software spyware on any of my devices. Ever.

The tax information they demand is intrusive enough...and your logic is to not only give them more, but also give them control of your device? Access to absolutely everything they might want? The ability to push a targeted update?

If it ever comes to the install button being required, it's time for mass resistance.

Thanks for your post, though. It perfectly illustrates what I was saying in another thread about tax resistance often being about more than money and why so many see tax agencies as the bad guys.

There's no reason why the submission portal can't be safely sandboxed in a browser.

[FIA]

Re: Rude

...and your logic is to not only give them more, but also give them control of your device? Access to absolutely everything they might want? The ability to push a targeted update?

No, I'm not sure how I you got that from what I posted.

I linked to the dev docs that explain exactly what info you need to send. If you want to write your own software so you're 100% in control of what gets sent then that's the place to start. But they are mandating certain information, and all the MTD software will send it.

There's no reason why the submission portal can't be safely sandboxed in a browser.

...or the submission software sand boxed in a VM??

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

> "No, I'm not sure how I you got that from what I posted."

That's what client-side software does to computers it's installed on.

> "I linked to the dev docs that explain exactly what info you need to send. If you want to write your own software so you're 100% in control of what gets sent then that's the place to start. But they are mandating certain information, and all the MTD software will send it."

And that's far more information that's what's required for taxes or what would be submitted via browser or paper.

> "...or the submission software sand boxed in a VM??"

Wouldn't put it past them to claim that's "false information" if someone uses a VM "with knowledge" to prevent the software from having more access to their system.

These people are inherently untrustworthy. This is why being untrustworthy, despicable jerks gets in the way of tax administration. These people are some of the least trustworthy people imaginable.

The information demanded to actually administer the taxes is prying and intrusive enough. But no, they want more, and they also want client-side software installed.

Their shit might as well be virus infected. The client-side software is even worse than the "partners" who suck up private data and advertise to their clients.

There's no reason the required information can't be entered into a browser or uploaded via a standard spreadsheet format.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

All data that can be obtained by a simple query of the system data all browsers seem to make available to websites…

[TDJ]

Re: Rude

It's not rude, it's utterly outrageous. I can't comprehend how it's legal to make something a legal requirement, and then provide NO MEANS to meet that legal requirement without being forced to contract with a random third party, in particular for something as fundamental as taxation. I hope someone with enough legal knowledge will challenge it.

The only rational explanation I can come up with is that it's an extraordinary cynical attempt to shift all the burden of supporting end users to third party organisations. In other words, they want the revenue without the cost. Considering that "supporting people filing taxes" should literally be a core function of a state tax agency, it's mindblowing.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Rude

Like all good civil servants, I'm sure those working for HMRC are no exception and are learned scholars of the works of Franz Kafka

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Rude

An MOT is a legal requirement. How do you get one without paying a commercial third party?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Rude

Qualify as a MOT tester!

Not as far fetched in terms of meeting regulations...

The brother of a friend of mine used to run a hotel in the West Country, a Fawlty Towers like place.

Rather than pay an electrician to do the portable appliance and other electrical checks, he went did the necessary course and then he did the checks himself

[munnoch]

Re: Rude

When you call a guy in to do it for you, you're not paying for his competence, you're paying for the third party liability insurance he gets from being a member of a trade organisation. If it all goes titsup then you have that to fall back on. Joining the cllub is not nearly as easy as signing up for the 3 hour long PAT testing course, otherwise I would have done it by now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rude

That's quite simple: it's not a legal requirement to own a car.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Rude

An interesting point regarding the MOT, at least in England, from my knowledge...

A few years ago, they changed regulations regarding the need for an MOT for certain classes of Historic Vehicles. But it's still your responsibility to ensure roadworthyness and adherence to applicable regulations before driving on the Queen's[King's] highway

https://www.gov.uk/historic-vehicles

https://fbhvc.co.uk/mot-exemption-information

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Rude

Correction: I should have said "Great Britain" not England!!!

Vehicle testing in Northern Ireland is a bit different, and I didn't know if the exemption applies there

[MarkTriumphant]

Re: Rude

Nor is it a legal requirement to run a business.

[breakfast]

It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Of all the things I loved about being self-employed, accounting wasn't one of them. Turning a horrible once-per-year job into four horrible quarterly jobs is not an improvement. It will ultimately cause a certain proportion of businesses to close down and another proportion who were previously law-abiding to go off-books. Will it increase revenues? Unlikely.

Good news for accountants, though, I guess. I wonder what discipline most people at HMRC trained in.

[Like a badger]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

I wonder what discipline most people at HMRC trained in.

There's few accountants, few people with business experience. Most staff will be junior EO/HEO grades, who will have some knowledge but varying levels of tax training and expertise. Tax inspectors have more training and experience and tend to be SEO/Grade 7s. Some of the tax inspectors have encyclopaedic knowledge of tax, some don't. Perhaps only 5k FTE across all of HMRC who have real in depth tax expertise, and they'll be fully occupied doing tax investigations and audits.

Also, worth noting that the accountants aren't any keener on MTD than business:

https://www.tax.org.uk/mtd-out-of-control-say-tax-professionals

Admittedly dated, but nothing has changed.

[AMBxx]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Accountants would much rather be helping their customers to be more efficient. This stuff is just a needless distraction from 'proper work'.

[breakfast]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

I can kind of see the logic once you hit the VAT threshold because VAT reporting is quarterly anyway and requires basically the same data, but for everyone else it's hard to see any benefit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

I hazard a guess that one of several objectives here is to force businesses who conveniently find that they're under the VAT threshold to come clean. ATM these businesses do a single end of year tax return, "Oh look, I've totted it all up, but lucky me, just under the VAT threshold, again!". MDT is corporation tax rather than VAT, but even so accurately falsifying four quarterly tax statements and the annual return will be a challenge, and would provide a lot more data to investigate.

[Roland6]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

For the accounting package ad’s, it does seem a big sales point is the ability to do “everything” on the mobile phone. If implemented well (something I doubt given my experience), this “convenance” could easily become a habit, making cash-in-hand / off-the-books jobs more hassle, so forcing businesses to be more honest without really trying to be.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Who the *HELL* do HMRC think will be doing their accounts on a ****** smartphone!??!!!??

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Most of the sole-traders that I know are expecting to do all the day to day stuff, issuing invoices for small jobs, tracking expenditure & income on the 'phone, & then sitting in front of a bigger screen periodically for more complex invoices & checking prior to submission of the quarterly return.

[Anonymous Coward]

ATM these businesses do ...

Opps. Misread ATM there. I thought you were talking about HMRC's ATM.

Silly me!

[ITMA]

Re: ATM these businesses do ...

HMRC's Automated Theft Machine?

[dullgeek]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Also there is the terrifying gotcha that VAT is on a rolling year.

It is possible that a one-man-band contractor could invoice 51K in one incoming tax year then 51K in the next income tax year, requiring quarterly income tax returns and due to billing at the end of each project or whatever find that his turnover exceeds 90K in a twelve month period, at which point HMRC may say "You are not VAT registered!, you must give us 20% of all that money right now and pay a large penalty!" Our hypothetical contractor then has to spend more money on accounting and tell his customers he is going to charge them 20% VAT from now on.

[Roland6]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Not been paying much attention - as over the threshold, but I seem to remember the VAT threshold is also due to be lowered.

The irritation is I expect HMRC are expecting a high level of late filing and thus fine income, additional to tax revenues.

[Nematode]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

"they'll be fully occupied doing tax investigations and audits"

And getting a lot of them wrong, too, viz IR35

[J.G.Harston]

Re: It's more work, more expense, marginal benefits at best

Turning a once-per-year job where you have nine months to get around to doing it into four quarterly jobs that each must be done within three weeks.... plus the annual job.

I often don't get the banking or other accounts up to the end of the previous month until two or three weeks into the next month, I can *NEVER* do accounts up to the end of the previous month. It's 11th April today. The latest my current financial records run to is 22nd March. I *CANNOT* start last year's accounts until June. (I usually do them in July.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of details

As a sole trader I have had no warning of this at all. I run from a very customised spreadsheet that totals things up to lay out exactly like the tax return. Trivial to fill in.

Now all I am seeing is either large bills for software and features I do not need, and having to hand my personal tax and income details to various unknown companies.

Or finding one of various companies who have software "in development" that want to keep my details on their cloud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Lack of details

I use diyaccounting.co.uk (MS Excel/OO Calc spreadsheets) and VitalTax for MTD. Others do exist and there are some MTD offerings that are more flexible than VitalTax (ie. Don’t need Excel and can be run on Linux). Total cost £36 Pa for VitalTax and a donation to DiY-Acc. For my consulting business this has been more than adequate.

[Adelio]

Re: Lack of details

I am retired now but i would never agreee for a third party company to hold my details exteernally.

I would expect att data to be held ONLY locally. Do not give then even the possibility of a data leak. It happens all too frequently.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Lack of details

"on their cloud"

Meaning US owned cloud covered by US Cloud Act. Meaning your data is up for grabs to anyone in US government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Lack of details

And how stable are these companies that are springing up? If I pick a new outfit, what happens when they run out of cash? How often am I having to mess around with moving my data around and re-reading that Ts and Cs as to who the new owners are selling my information to now.

I can imagine some of these folding in the middle of January just as a tax return is due. Collapsing due to the load of running all the returns. Instead of me just filling in a couple of dozen boxes on a online HMRC form.

[Tron]

Typical, pointless, half-arsed govt shitshow.

Dumping more work and more costs on people when the current system actually works OK. Given that we already report our finances online on a govt. website (which is, well, digital), what is the benefit in making us buy iffy software to do it?

Luckily(?!) I'm making less post-Brexit, and have dipped below the current bar. I doubt things will improve given the decline in the economy here and reduction in my clients' budgets, so when they finally force even me to do this, there might actually be some acceptable software. Though I'll have to buy a steal-your-everything Windows Crud PC with AI to run it on.

The UK just gets worse every week.

[Nematode]

These stats are meaningless at present because of the turnover(? - I note the article fails to clarify turnover vs. profit) threshold. The £30k to £50k band I'm sure accounts for a huge proportion. And anyway, many sole traders are already using software which is ready for MTD (no. 1 son included) and they won't see very much of a difference, the s/w will smooth the way having had the vendors do all the work. 3-monthly reporting is a good idea imho. I usually did my books monthly (Ltd Co) but occasionally I missed it and the quarterly VAT return would kick me into doing them.

[Nematode]

Seriously though, why is El Reg playing HMRC's fiddle for them? A very unbalanced headline, only partly compensated for by the content details.

[elsergiovolador]

This is common for most outlets, they will parrot official lines, even if they are complete rubbish. Perhaps nobody wants to deal with an audit triggered by an upset jobsworth at HMRC.

[doublelayer]

Are we seeing different headlines? Mine says "Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up". Is it unbalanced by not criticizing the program in the headline? Since I don't see praise of the program there either, that doesn't seem like imbalance to me. Since it's a legal requirement whether good or bad, rather than something optional, the numbers don't seem unbalanced either. What would you want the headline to say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know what he meant, but...

When I read the headline (Yank here), it originally sounded like yet another government initiative which fell flat.

But there's a big difference between optional and mandatory.

7 in 10 ignoring a mandate says something much different than 7 in 10 finding a government project to be useless.

[Nematode]

It's not yet a mandate that 10 out of 10 should have signed up. It is a stepped approach, both by date and turnover.

[Nematode]

The issue is: is the figure 3 in 10 expectable because of the date and turnover thresholds or because it should be much higher? If 3 out of 10 meets the expectable uptake, then implying 70% of businesses are not doing it is indeed misleading. (30% sounds about right to me. If it should be 33%, then there's a shortfall of 10%, not 70%.) Since we know it needn't be 10 out of 10 yet, but that's the sort of spin HMRC put on it to try and frighten people into MTD. A bit like they keep parroting tax avoidance as Bad, whereas tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is not.

[Floor1]

It is just wrong to enforce the purchase or software or services to pay tax or use an app

It is just wrong to enforce the purchase or software or services to pay tax or use an app. They should provide offline cross platform software or plug-ins to do this. Why not a plug in for gnucash?

[elsergiovolador]

Re: It is just wrong to enforce the purchase or software or services to pay tax or use an app

How free software could invite civil servants to wine and steak dinner?

[saxicola]

Re: It is just wrong to enforce the purchase or software or services to pay tax or use an app

GnuCash is a volunteer project and I suspect not enough developers in the UK. I think it was just me at one point.

I started writing a plugin, in Python, kinda got some of it working then life happened and I had to give it up.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: It is just wrong to enforce the purchase or software or services to pay tax or use an app

I currently use a few Unix shall scripts (calling sed, etc) to process my CSV bank statements. Hopefully I can adapt this to handle the new stuff a couple of years from now. I expect lots of complaints and pushback and demands for open processes to emerge.

[b1k3rdude]

And will this be any more reliable than the other god awefull government online systems, I think not. Its shit like this that is the reason why I will never go self employed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Requirements?

Sounds like this scheme requires either installing proprietary software or turning extremely private data over to a third party through its web portal, yes?

If government is to mandate digital interaction, it should be required to provide that capability directly.

Just went through this with the US IRS. They don't allow direct electronic filing. Taxpayers who want to file electronically have to sign up with a third-party service which abuses personal information and commits advertising against a quite captive audience.

So guess what I did?

I printed my taxes with a handwriting font and mailed them in. Somebody has to process that now. Fuck them. Make it hard on me? I'll make it hard on them.

[joed]

Re: Requirements?

I've doing the same for years.

We've been so close but Washington Muppets ruled it a non-free market solution and a government overreach to provide direct file option to taxpayers. Obviously not without bribeslobbying from big tax. F them all.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: Requirements?

I did that with the 2021 census. I objected to the US company HMG had employed, but I am a strong supporter of censuses (family history nerd) so filled in the form on paper with my best non-machine-readable cursive forcing them to eat into their fixed-price profits employing humans to read my writing. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

A single format for all.

What is wrong with HMRC providing a piece of software that does the job for them. The Inland Revenue (precursor of HMRC) used to supply their own software which was simple, worked well and was reliable. I would happily complete this knowing it will automatically update my account whenever HMRC ask for the data.

All the software providers must comply with an HMRC specification, but will all provide different formats and costs, to what benefit?

[elsergiovolador]

Re: A single format for all.

Don't worry, someone will benefit ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A single format for all.

> "What is wrong with HMRC providing a piece of software that does the job for them. The Inland Revenue (precursor of HMRC) used to supply their own software which was simple, worked well and was reliable. I would happily complete this knowing it will automatically update my account whenever HMRC ask for the data."

"Automatically" seems to imply client-side software integration, rather than a user intentionally accessing a web portal.

Government software running client side? No, just no no no no no no no way in hell.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: A single format for all.

"Government software running client side? No, just no no no no no no no way in hell."

I agree with that. Let us just send relevant CSV (or similar simple data) to them. They can parse it. We can check they got it right, and everyone will be happy (except the payment processors).

[J.G.Harston]

Re: A single format for all.

Or even just specify the CSV field formats to let you upload the required data that I can add a line to my EXISTING spreadsheets to export?

[Anonymous Coward]

So out of touch...

Parliament are so out of touch with the rest of the country. Just because those toffee-nosed in-breds that call themselves MPs can afford high-speed Internet connectivity in their mansions or riverside second-homes in the "true south-east" doesn't mean the rest of the country does. Many places here in Oxfordshire and the Cotwolds (somehow considered part of the "affluent" south-east) have no land-line connectivity, and my home in central Oxfordshire doesn't have mobile phone reception. The phone companies swear that we do, but I found out that if there is reception by just one test within a specified square mile area then that counts as coverage. I live within one mile of our town centre and have even considered the possibility of connecting my home to the exchange in the centre of town by buying my own fibre. Openwretch, however, said no chance in using their poles, and the local council didn't even know where to start when it came to putting the fibre through the current underground infrastructure - they didn't know what was underground and where!!!

I also agree that the "MTD", or whatever it's branded as today is nothing much more than profiteering by US based tax software companies that lobbied an uncaring government who have a lot in common with the three wise monkeys.

Side-note: Who decided to use the term "Making Tax Digital" as it's branding anyway? It has overtones of both STD and MAGA - both not good in my book. Just saying.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: So out of touch...

The same people who decided on Subscriber Trunk Dialling.....

[RegGuy1]

On the 1752 date

I know, I know. Everyone's busy talking about HMRC, but one fun fact I've always liked is the cal command in Unix:

$ cal 9 1752|tr ' ' .

...September.1752.....

Su.Mo.Tu.We.Th.Fr.Sa..

.......1..2.14.15.16..

17.18.19.20.21.22.23..

24.25.26.27.28.29.30..

(Sorry, had to put the dots there to sort the formatting.)

[Ian Johnston]

Re: On the 1752 date

That's all very well, but "cal 1750", for example, goes wrong because it shows 1750 as running from 1st January to 31st December, when in fact it ran from 25th March to 24th March (Annunciation Day to Annunciation Day). Which is why, "missing days" aside the tax year starts when it does.

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

Re: On the 1752 date

And prior to 1750, the leap day was often the 24th Feb. (If I've got the date right.) With there being two days labelled 24th Feb in a leap year.

Don't you love calendars?

[Alfie Noakes]

Haircut?

Does this MTD apply to the 11 barbers shops on my high street?

Just wondering ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Haircut?

Are they “Turkish barbers” ?

Suspect it only applies to the over the counter barber’s business, or the under the counter business activities.

[Ernst Blofelt]

When the HM refers to some one who paid off his nonce brothers victim (and no one ever mentioned the tax implications of giving someone you've never met 12 million quid), ill pass

[ITPerson]

Digital ID

Are they forced to get a digital ID when they do this???

[MonkeyJuice]

Re: Digital ID

You've always needed a Unique Taxpayer Number to self report.

[xyz123]

Friend showed me how to remotely break into MTD and see EVERYONE's tax filing documents. you can't edit them but you can view and screenshot them. Takes less than 20seconds to access if you have their registered details.

Can't even see the IP address used to access the details as that system doesn't properly store it. So untraceable hack.

Friend isn't even working for the government, so no internal knowledge was needed.

[BahnStormer77]

The system is broken

I spent six months and over 100h on the phone trying to sign up for this broken system... I ended up paying punitive VAT estimates, sometimes more than my quarterly takings because HMRC couldn't work out how to register my company. It was nearly two years after IR35 killed off my business, I eventually managed to claim back all the erroneous tax. Just a joke.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: The system is broken

If something goes wrong, one is screwed. Last time I had a question for them, it took them about two months before they called back. I had forgotten about the whole thing by then (i.e. given up). It's "Brazil" (the movie) for real.

[I Am Spartacus]

Have you tried to do this?

Mostly, HMRC have made great steps forward with MTD. But theu must have outsourced this to a bunch of muppets. I see the hands of a big five consultany group - you know the ones, where the senior manager comes in to win the bid, promises to staff the project with experienced engineers, and you end up getting a group of first year graduates or interns doing the work.

I have 45 years experience of app development and IT. And I nearly through my smart phone at the wall trying to get this app to register me. I thought I had managed, but apparently I have not. So I get to go through the whole glorious process again.

This is a failed app on an epic scale.

God help the British public and the Home Office help lines, if they do decided to issue digital ID cards using this as a model.

[fitzpat]

Re: Have you tried to do this?

There was a particular set of muppets from Crap Blemini exactly like this on MTD for ITSA. Fresh grads charged at a partners day rate. Seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Self assessment

As somebody who has the joys of a self assessment to do nowadays I've had a couple of emails reminding me about this - don't fall into any of the applicable categories (definitely not a landlord) so not relevant but if their estimates of how many people should be signing up include people like me it's no wonder the figures are out of whack.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the annual cost ro businesses will end up at £100m p.a. Whatever HMRCs "marketing" might assert the real beneficiary is HMRC. What is the cost benefit to them. What are the headcount cuts or guaranteed improved services like answering the **** telephone and emails

[Simon Harris]

"HMRC previously estimated the change would cost people about £350 to adopt and then £115 annually."

Tax deductible I hope!

[anonymous boring coward]

As if.. Once you are using someone else system, they know you would be extremely reluctant to move, so the prices will keep going up.

I will not be using some commercial system.

[anonymous boring coward]

You need high-ish turnover before you have to join this scheme. I have years to go yet.

I'm not buying into the "let us take care of it" drives from payment processors. I'm pretty sure they would flog me.