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MTD is live — and the first quarterly update is due 7 August

If your self-employment income is over £50,000, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has applied to you since April. The first quarter ended 5 July; the update is due by 7 August.

Article · 13 July 2026

Plenty of associates have heard of MTD in the abstract and assumed someone would tell them when it mattered. This is that moment: the first quarterly period (6 April to 5 July 2026) has closed, and the update must be with HMRC by 7 August.

What the update actually is

A summary of your income and expenses for the quarter, submitted from MTD-compatible software. Not a tax return, not a payment — payment dates haven't changed. If your records are digital and current, it's a fifteen-minute job. If they're a drawer of pay statements, it isn't.

If you're not ready

Don't panic — the penalty regime is points-based rather than an instant fine, and one late update won't ruin you. But do fix the system now rather than repeating the scramble every quarter: software connected to your bank, practice pay statements captured monthly, expenses photographed as they happen. Set up once, the remaining three updates this year become routine.

We're onboarding associates onto MTD as a fixed piece of work — setup, mapping superannuation correctly, and we file every update from there. The full picture is in our MTD guide for dentists.

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