MAKING TAX DIGITAL: TWO WEEKS TO THE 7 AUGUST DEADLINE
It is not a tax return . It is a short summary of income and expenses for 6 April to 5 July, sent straight to HMRC through recognised software. No forms, no accountant’s waiting room, no shoebox of receipts. Some report on calendar quarters instead, 1 April to 30 June. Either way the deadline is 7 August.
More than 864,000 sole traders and landlords have until 7 August 2026 to send HMRC their first quarterly update under Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax. Among them are hundreds of thousands of construction subcontractors: the fitters, plasterers, sparkies, brickies and groundworkers paid under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). Plenty of them have not started. With two weeks to go, the job is a lot smaller than the noise around it. With invoices and expenses to hand, a subbie can get the whole quarter into CIS Invoice and submitted in under an hour. Most will do it quicker.
“We hear the same thing on every site. The wife does my invoices at the weekend. That worked when it was once a year. It doesn’t work when HMRC wants a summary every three months. Do the invoice on the phone when you come off site and the quar- terly update builds itself. She gets her Saturdays back and you get a proper set of records.” - Paul Edwards, founder, Aper- ture Works
The first thing to know is what the update is not.
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