Making Tax Digital: what it means for self-employed gas engineers
By the Manifold team · 9 July 2026
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax started in April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with gross income over £50,000. It replaces the single annual return with digital record keeping, four quarterly updates to HMRC and a final declaration after the year end. For the first group in, the first quarterly deadline is 7 August 2026.
Who has to use Making Tax Digital, and from when?
It arrives in income bands, and the band is measured on gross income, meaning your total turnover from self-employment plus any property income, before expenses, from the previous tax year.
- From April 2026: self-employed people and landlords with more than £50,000 of qualifying income.
- From April 2027: those over £30,000.
- From April 2028: those over £20,000.
Gross, not profit, is the word that catches people out. A busy year on the tools with a lot of materials passing through your books can push turnover past £50,000 even when what you actually took home was nowhere near it. If you invoice for boilers, cylinders and parts as well as labour, check your turnover figure before assuming this isn't you.
What do you actually have to do each quarter?
In place of the old Self Assessment return, you keep your records digitally in software that works with MTD, you send HMRC a short update each quarter with your income and expense totals, and after the year end you make a final declaration to confirm the figures and settle up. The quarterly deadlines are 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May.
The quarterly update is totals, not a full return. That sounds light, and it is, provided the records behind it exist. The engineers who will find MTD painful are the ones typing up a shoebox of receipts the week the update is due. Log invoices and expenses as you go and the quarter itself takes minutes.
How should a gas engineer get set up?
Check last year's gross income
Add up your total turnover from the business plus any rental income, before expenses. Over £50,000 and you're in now. Under it, note how close you are, because the £30,000 and £20,000 bands follow in 2027 and 2028.
Move your records off paper
Every invoice out and every receipt in needs to end up in digital form. If your invoicing is already software-based, most of the work is done. If it's a duplicate pad in the van, this is the habit to change first, well before a deadline forces it.
Confirm your software works with MTD
Check gov.uk for software that's compatible with MTD for Income Tax, and ask your accountant what they support before committing to anything. You want your invoicing, your records and their systems talking to each other, not three separate piles.
What happens if you're late in the first year?
Not much, by design. HMRC has said it won't charge penalty points for late quarterly updates in the first year, 2026/27, so the 7 August deadline is real but the landing is soft. After that first year, late submissions build up points, and once you hit four there's a £200 charge. Treat 2026/27 as the practice lap. Get the habit right while the stakes are low, because from year two the points are real.
What if you earn under the threshold?
Nothing is required of you yet, and some people are exempt altogether, for example on digital-exclusion grounds. But the bands keep dropping, £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028, and because entry is judged on a previous year's gross income, a good run of work now can pull you in later. If you're anywhere near a band, start keeping digital records anyway. It costs you little, and it means the switch, when it comes, is a non-event rather than a scramble.
This is general information, not tax advice. Thresholds, dates and exemptions come from HMRC; check gov.uk or speak to an accountant about your own position before acting on any of it.