Mark a quarterly update as filed for MTD for Income Tax
This article explains how to mark a quarterly update as filed for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax in FreeAgent.
HMRC requires anyone registered for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax to keep digital records and send income and expense totals every three months.
Quarterly updates need to be submitted for each separate self-employment and property income source. Therefore, if you have more than one income stream, for instance if you're self-employed and also a landlord, you'll need a sole trader and an unincorporated landlord account in FreeAgent. You can find out what counts as multiple income streams, as well as tips for managing more than one income stream, in our how to efficiently manage multiple income streams guide.
You can use FreeAgent to send a quarterly update to HMRC for MTD for Income Tax and enable quarterly updates to be sent to HMRC automatically.
However, if you’re sending quarterly updates to HMRC outside of FreeAgent, or have moved to FreeAgent during the tax year and have already submitted a quarterly update(s), you can mark the relevant quarter(s) as filed in FreeAgent to stop the submission status showing as overdue. Marking the quarter(s) as filed will only update the submission status and won’t lock the accounting data.
Please note:
- FreeAgent’s MTD for Income Tax functionality is available for sole traders and unincorporated landlords. Read our fast-track guides for sole traders and landlords for MTD for Income Tax.
- You’ll need full (level 8) access to your FreeAgent account in order to mark a quarterly update as filed.
- If you use FreeAgent with your accountant, they may mark your quarterly updates as filed on your behalf and restrict your ability to access these. Please speak to your accountant if you have any questions or want to be able to access these. FreeAgent is unable to change these permissions for you.
- If you have a FreeAgent Practice Dashboard, you’ll need to switch to your client’s account to follow the steps below once you’ve set up your practice and clients for MTD for Income Tax for MTD for Income Tax and signed up your clients.
Navigate to the ‘Taxes’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Income Tax’ from the drop-down menu.
Select the relevant tax year from the list.
Select the ‘More’ button and choose ‘Mark QX income and expenses as sent’ from the drop-down menu. If multiple quarters are overdue, you’ll have the option to mark them all as sent.
Select ‘Yes, mark as sent’ in the pop-up window to complete the process.