Five tips for building a digital tax future

A key part of HMRC’s vision for a modern tax administration is to “drive up levels of innovation and productivity”. That applies both technologically to software vendors, as they seek to improve the functionality of their systems, and to businesses and accountancy firms, as they use those systems to create more efficient and accurate workflows. But getting there could require rapid change from 2023 onward which could prove costly and disruptive unless organisations start to look at their processes in the near term.

Initially, we can expect more emphasis on reporting transparency and increased accuracy, with the standardisation of the collection, processing and submission of data. This is because HMRC is keen to improve its understanding of what’s going on under the tax hood and wishes to be able to take pre-emptive action to lower the incidence of incorrect returns. This data will then help the tax authority know when to carry out an intervention which will hopefully increase the compliance yield, with HMRC under considerable pressure to reduce the £31bn tax gap.

Businesses are also realising that digitalising their tax processes can provide them with immediate gains. These include significant time savings, fewer errors, and more time to carry out data analysis and tax planning.

In our latest survey with Accountancy Age, we found a third of those surveyed spent over 25 days a year on VAT reporting while 19 percent spent over 50 days and 64 percent wanted to reduce compliance workloads using automation. Accuracy was also a concern, with 57 percent admitting they accepted errors in their VAT reporting with nearly half admitting they wanted to use automation to eradicate errors. Meanwhile, over a quarter wanted to use data analytics to compare data and look at potential eligibility for other tax claims and reliefs.

When it came to dealing with complex VAT such as partial exemption, 80 percent wanted to automate these processes over the next five years, irrespective of any regulatory compunction to do so, revealing that digitalisation is no longer being predominantly driven by compliance.

Another key takeaway from the report and one of the inevitable implications of HMRC’s reforms is that spreadsheets are likely to play a lesser role in reporting in the future, with dedicated tax technology coming to the fore.

So how can you begin to build out your digital tax processes?

1. Get on top of your data

When drawing data from multiple sources, such as accountancy systems and ERPs, you need to be able to verify the integrity of that data and be so confident in it that it can be used to fulfil multiple tax obligations. To get to this stage, you’ll need to look at mechanisms that allow you to detect and remedy any potential issues. Error and anomaly detection can alert you to these by searching the system for discrepancies. Standard checks can be used to look for duplicate transactions or unusual VAT rates, for instance, or you can customise the search terms. This will allow you to specify your criteria and take corrective action, perhaps to identify VAT on tax codes where there shouldn’t be any or to flag supplies that have been given an incorrect VAT treatment. On the plus side, automating error detection in this way improves confidence in figures and shortens preparation and review times.

2. Automation is the key to greater accuracy

To ensure improved accuracy for digital audits, you should look at automating the calculations you carry out. This can significantly reduce the risk of error particularly if your business uses complex VAT processes such as VAT groups or partial exemption standard or special method. You can also easily use this to apply adjustments and block/exclude transactions as well as to generate calculation reports.

3. Be prepared to prove your workings

As HMRC begins to clamp down on compliance it’s going to fall to businesses to demonstrate they’ve done everything they can to ensure their workings are correct. You’ll need to be able to go back through your VAT process, possibly even back to the transaction level, which can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. In contrast, a VAT process that uses a digital tax engine can see all stages of the process time stamped, recording when and where changes were made. This digital audit trail means you can quickly respond to any queries from HMRC.

4. Mine your own tax data for useful insights

Analysing your own tax data can provide you with a wealth of information. You can view and compare historic and current return periods. Compare period-on-period transactions. Use trend analysis to determine future liabilities. Make commercial decisions. Even use gap analysis to determine if you are claiming all the tax reliefs you are entitled to. During a recent poll on an ICAEW webinar, we found 75 percent of the audience would implement tax analytics this year if they could.

5. Brace yourself for further change

The government has warned that it intends to make “substantive progress” in reforming the UK tax regime over the next few years and will lay the foundations for further reforms leading up to 2030. That means we can expect more regulatory hoops to jump through and so you’ll need to make sure you can meet these demands. If you go down the technology route, ascertain the level of support you can expect from vendors and how and when they issue updates or if you’ll be left fending for yourself.

Digital tax platforms such as our AlphaVAT solution could help you meet these challenges and prepare for further regulatory demands by digitally managing your entire VAT compliance cycle.

To find out how technology could futureproof your VAT process, join our A Guide to Digitalising VAT webinar or if you want to know how to automate complex VAT, why not sign up for our Digitalising Partial Exemption webinar.