Recommendation 21

HMRC did not assess how many businesses would face different upfront transitional costs and was unable to say how many customers will face the highest upfront transitional costs or how this would vary for each income bracket. The average cost for all taxpayers affected by Making Tax Digital was expected to be £330, but was expected to be £460 for businesses that had Self Assessment incomes of between £10,000 and £30,000. However, HMRC’s highest estimate of the cost to get ready for the requirements of the programme are close to £1,000 in total.47 We therefore asked the Department what it was doing to let taxpayers know what costs to expect so that they could plan for these. It told us that it wanted to be as transparent as possible about the costs of the programme for customers, and that it had a “very strong communications plan”. It explained that the costs it published tended to be upper-range costs. HMRC told us that it wanted to be “really clear on our messaging” and that it would be ready to share these messages very soon, with a “very firm warming-up campaign so customers are aware”.48