from the horses mouth - hopefully when they say at least they mean never
Having listened to concerns about the pace of change, particularly for small businesses, the government announced in July 2017 that the pace of mandation would be slowed and that Making Tax Digital will not be mandated for taxes other than VAT until
at least April 2020.
with regard to vat its more than a slight disgrace that no one will have any time to properly test drive a decent variety of packages before the deadline, and that hmrc will not be ready fully from their IT point of view despite the 1/4/19 start date is even more of a disgrace - i have no idea why the top bods at hmrc are ploughing on making life a nightmare for small business when they faithfully promised originally there would be plenty of time. Heads should roll and those heads should roll from the top and anyone below that who is trying to tow the incorrect party line that it will be alright on the night - no it won't be for the poor bods forced into immediate radical change. It would be very simple to take the hassle away and make this non mandatory till 1/4/2020 and everyone would go away happy as long as the IT rolls out in the next 6-9 months.
look at the example of a couple of simple business types who will have to wait till early next year before they can get up and running and probably have next to no time to get up and running before the legislated deadline.
Early 2019 Open to partnerships and those customers that trade with the EU.
Grrrrrrrrrr