Ensuring you have Clean Data could mean avoiding excessive Tax bills and penalties in 2020
Making Tax Digital was introduced by HMRC with an objective of improving tax accuracy. We are presently only in the first stage of MTD introduction, and at IMS we predict poor system data accuracy is going to be one of the biggest issues as MTD moves to the next stage.
The discrepancies in your tax records that this year are picked up in the Excel bridging between your iSeries and the MTD HMRC submission are going to become an issue as the system becomes more stream lined and clean and accurate data in your system is going to be critical.
Is your solution using Excel as an interim solution? This is permitted only for 2019-20 tax submissions; longer term MTD regulations preclude the use of Excel. This means that all adjustments in system data are going to have to be done live prior to producing your MTD report. Discrepancies will have to be handled by data corrections in the live system and businesses will not be able to do ’last minute’ adjustments. Are you prepared? Does your system not only produce the nine boxes of data required by HMRC but also contain accurate data?
The key point is that businesses are going to need to put the data in correctly in the first place. This means users must be properly trained in how to use the system correctly. Clean data saves time by avoiding retrospective corrections and ensures you are not paying excessive tax bills. Do you need assistance to ensure your system has the checks and automations that will avoid data entry problems? Are your staff properly trained? MTD needs to be automated for all companies by 1st October – that is only 21 weeks away.
Contact IMS today for a 1 day consultancy to investigate how you can improve your data accuracy and avoid paying excessive tax bills. Many companies have already benefited enormously from this audit, so why not book it today?.