The MTD process

From April 2026, self-employed taxpayers must submit their Income Tax Self Assessment (ITSA) digitally under Making Tax Digital (MTD).

Prerequisites

To prepare:

1. Categorise your clients into the 3 MTD intake brackets — to find out eligible clients, use the MTD client list.
2. Discuss signing up to the MTD pilot with your clients.
3. Create a government agent services account (ASA).

The process

When your client is happy to be part of the pilot:

None of these steps can be performed in bulk. Each client must be registered individually.

1. Move your client to the correct government agent services account (ASA) (external website).
2. Sign up your client to the MTD pilot — https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sign-up-your-business-for-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax (external website).
3. In IRIS Elements, mark your client as enrolled in MTD.
4. To retrieve the client data held by HMRC, connect IRIS Elements to HMRC.

   You need your ASA account credentials created in step 1.

   Quarterly obligations are retrieved from HMRC and displayed in the client record's MTD tab.

5. Create and submit quarterly obligations as directed by HMRC.

   More information coming soon.

6. At the end of the tax year, create and submit the final declaration.

   More information coming soon.