The Government looks set to proceed with
controversial changes to the way that businesses submit tax
returns- potentially causing a headache for small businesses, the
self-employed and sole traders in the process.

Unpopular changes to tax returns
likely

HMRC's proposed changes to the tax return system
would see firms required to submit tax updates every quarter rather
than one big tax return at the end of the year. This could
naturally cause a damaging increase in the effort and cost of
operating a business for many- hitting small businesses and the
self employed particularly hard.

Despite a petition that's been signed by over
100,000 people from the small business community, the government
will most probably go ahead with the plans now that the EU
referendum is over.

A move to more digitalisation and more
frequent returns

The Government has committed itself to fully
implementing digital tax accounting by 2020, a move that it
believes will allow tax to be gathered more easily and accurately.
As part of this commitment to improving accuracy and efficiency,
HMRC is proposing that smaller tax returns should be completed more
often, in attempt to boost the precision of tax collecting.

The changes will obviously affect a broad range of
businesses, across every industry sector. Many businesses who keep
records in the traditional way are worried about the support that
they'll receive when it comes to the adjusting to the transition.
At the moment, it remains to be seen whether these changes will
increase efficiency- currently it looks like it may just make the
lives of small business owners and the self-employed a lot more
complicated.

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