The Bookkeeper’s Guide to Making Tax Digital_1

It's really interesting that you use the word productivity.

We talk about, with our bookkeeping community, we talk about our ability to provide more insights to the clients because it, of course you're going to need to deal with tax compliance, but also attached to that, obviously the transactions associated with that tax, um, you're also going to be able to speak to your clients about credit control or, you know, their sales forecast or, you know, what's happening with their cash flow.

So we see it as a better conversation generally around the numbers.

Um, leading on from that, what are the, like, national priorities when it comes to MTD? Why is this so important for us, like, financially as a country and in terms of the economy?

Yeah.

So it, it, it, it is on the UK scorecard to bring in additional tax revenue, so there is a f- a financial benefit- There's a cost to delivering Making Tax Digital.

We've been really transparent.

You can go to gov.uk and see that.

But fundamentally, uh, there is additional tax revenue, and I think that's a, that's a big part of it.

I'm really keen that that's not the only story.

As the stuff you've been talking about there, and it's, it struck me, I've been in charge for over two years, and one of the things I've got both myself and the team to do is go and spend time with real bookkeepers, real accountants, real tax agents.

And sometimes in the Tax Authority, you think you know things, um, and if I take bookkeepers as an example, I, I didn't really understand bookkeepers until I was thrust into the opportunity to spend loads of time with them.

And that, for me, has been...

And it's not just 'cause this is a bookkeepers podcast, but it's been one of the most enjoyable part.

I've actually got more contacts and chats I have on a weekly basis with bookkeepers than I do, um, than I do, than I ever ima- imagined, actually.

Because what I see is an industry that is really connected with their customers, who talk to their customers more often, and can actually use those insights to help them manage their affairs much better.

Um, and one of the things we did in Making Tax Digital when I came in, we committed to building what we call multiple agent functionality.

We heard for many, many years that for Making Tax Digital, for income tax to be successful, that there has to be a role for, and we could talk about the terminology, supporting agents.

There's, um, people that, there are probably better terminology in the world.

But for that ability to have a main agent that can do the tax return, but also, um, have an agent that can support, we built that functionality a year ahead of schedule.

We're testing it right now, and it's that commitment to seeing that not just the role of bookkeepers, but being able to support good record keeping and better services has to be a, a big part of Making Tax Digital.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, in a nutshell, it's, it's been terrific meeting, um, bookkeepers.

Uh, I think that's what I mentioned earlier about the optimism.

There is, and I'm gonna generalize here about the whole industry, but it's an optimistic industry who want to do great things to be able to help their, their clients, and that, that's the thing that's really sort of smacked me in the face in the last two years, having met lots of bookkeepers.