HM Revenue & Customs wants to cut its costs and get paid taxes quicker. This is the bottom line.
HM Revenue & Customs is able to cut its costs, if it no longer has to offer free software and software support to businesses. Therefore, HM Revenue & Customs are now telling businesses that they must use third party software to file quarterly Returns (for VAT, Income Tax and Corporation Tax). VAT is the first tax to start, with quarterly Income Tax and Corporation Tax Returns to follow over the next few of years.
HM Revenue and Customs orginally intended for quarterly payment of income tax and corporation tax along with the quarterly returns. However, after a back-lash they relented, and now say that businesses can voluntarily pay the taxes filed quarterly (except VAT) if they so wish. In addition, HMRC believes that if businesses see what tax they have to pay every quarter, even if they don't pay it, they are more likely to keep aside money for that tax and not spend it, so businesses that have a history of paying late, do not do so in future.
We are one of those third party software providers, ensuring you keep compliant with the new HMRC rules. We provide what is known as Bridging Software, creating a "bridge" between your bookkeeping data and HMRC, without the need for other expensive software to be purchased, without learning new complicated systems and without losing the flexibility of keeping your business data in Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet.