MTD ScopeSources & checks

Sources, checks & limitations

Accuracy needs evidence and a way to catch mistakes. We separate the source, our explanation, automated checks and professional review. None of these is a promise that errors are impossible.

What has actually been checked

Official source comparison
22 of 22 retained pages matched the live official body text. Comparison run: .
Software coverage
163 summary listings rechecked on 27 October 2026; full feature details retained from 24 October 2026. Prices are recorded for 17; the other 146 have no checked price. We have not usability-tested every product.
Independent tax review
Pending. No qualified UK tax professional is currently named as having reviewed this site.

Matching source text detects changes. It does not prove that our interpretation, calculations or coverage are correct. Dates on individual answers refer to the recorded source check, not professional approval.

Latest content review

AI-assisted source and interpretation review with targeted regression checks; not independent professional tax review. Completed .

Selected high-risk claims, all 163 software summary listings, and pricing conditions for 17 product entries across 13 vendors. Feature-detail baseline remains 24 October, except the separately retained LandlordFile recheck.

  • First-time start dates and qualifying income: Checked the three tax-year thresholds, strict more-than boundaries, gross income, joint shares and whole-month annualisation. Existing users, amended returns and unusual periods remain outside the calculated result. Official guidance.
  • Exemptions and unanswered questions: Corrected blank income selections being treated as no relevant income. Excluded the temporarily exempt 2026–27 phase from missing-year checks; kept NINO and Lloyd’s cases for individual review. Official guidance.
  • Quarterly dates and annual returns: Checked cumulative periods and dates. Calendar output assumes first-time entry and an unchanged period; switching periods and cessation require checking actual obligations. Updated the last pre-MTD return to refer to the usual Self Assessment route. Official guidance.
  • Penalties and exceptions: Separated required users, volunteers and exemption transitions. Clarified two versus four points, the one-time 30-day payment period and the need for an agreed payment plan that is followed. Official guidance.
  • Digital records and multiple products: Rechecked digital-link wording. Clarified that different submissions can use different products, but a single submission, including the whole annual return, must use one product. Official guidance.

Where each kind of fact comes from

WhatSourceHow it is shown to you
Thresholds, start dates, qualifying income, exemptions, deadlines, penaltiesGOV.UK guidance published by HMRC only. Never blogs, forums or AI summaries.Source links and recorded dates on the relevant page
Which software HMRC recognises, and what each product supportsHMRC's software finder, all 163 summaries checked 27 October 2026, feature details captured 24 October 2026A link to each product's HMRC listing
PricesEach vendor’s own pricing page or pricing FAQ, read directly in a browserDated source extracts, with billing period and conditions kept alongside the price
Which questions we answerPublic forums where sole traders, landlords and accountants discuss MTDLinks to the threads. Forum posts tell us what to answer, never what the answer is.

How we check

  1. We read the source itself. We keep a dated copy of every GOV.UK page we use, taken from GOV.UK's official content service, and the exact text of every vendor price page.
  2. We distinguish explanations from quotations. Rules are explained in our own words with links to the GOV.UK guidance. Practical preparation suggestions are identified as our checklist. Where GOV.UK gives a worked example, our checker is tested against that exact example.
  3. Machines check the match. Source-comparison checks detect changed or unavailable official pages without replacing retained evidence. Tests cover selected source statements, threshold boundaries, missing and invalid inputs, dates and recorded prices. These are specific checks, not an audit of every sentence. A source or test failure stops the standard build workflow. Complex checker cases do not receive a calculated start date.
  4. We recheck on a schedule. Our maintenance targets are: check official sources before release and after a change alert, refresh the software list monthly, and review prices within 30 days. These are targets, not a claim that an unattended monitoring service is running. Dated price snapshots are not live quotes. Overdue figures are marked for rechecking.
  5. We show conflicts instead of hiding them. When a vendor's page and HMRC's listing disagree, both appear on the product page, marked "Check before you rely on it".

Our release requirements

Before publication, our build checks require a complete successful official-source comparison within 24 hours and a software-list snapshot no more than 30 days old. We also check that the published pages and sitemap use our official domain.

Independent tax review is a separate status, shown above. Publication does not mean a professional review has been completed. We only name a reviewer when a completed review record covers the exact content version. Unconfirmed operator or contact details remain disclosed on our About page.

For a new or changed tax statement: retain the official source, record what it supports, check the interpretation and exceptions, update relevant tests, then log the change. A failed download remains unverified; an unchanged timestamp alone is not enough.

Our corrections

We record corrections. The entries below describe earlier versions and are not current price quotations. Our first set of prices, on 24 October 2026, was taken from an automated summary of vendor pages. When we reread every page ourselves on 25 October, we found errors and fixed them. Direct page reading can still miss conditions. The later billing-mode and scope corrections below record what the next review found.

DateWhat was wrongNow
25 October 2026Xero shown as "from £18 a month".Xero's Simple plan is £7 a month + VAT for businesses not registered for VAT, and includes MTD for Income Tax.
25 October 2026Pandle's free plan said not to include MTD submissions, with a warning.Pandle's feature table shows MTD IT submissions on both the free and Pro plans. Warning removed.
25 October 2026Tide shown as £13.99 + VAT a month for MTD.Tide says its MTD features are free with its business account; Tide Accounting is a separate add-on. HMRC's listing shows quarterly updates only, so both are shown.
25 October 2026Provestor prices marked "VAT not stated".Provestor's prices include VAT (its page also shows £82.50 + VAT = £99).
25 October 2026Landlord Studio shown with a price conflict and extra units at £1.20 + VAT.The page is consistent at £12 + VAT a month; extra units are £1.00 + VAT.
25 October 2026Coconut listed with a £159.99 "Full" plan; Hammock listed with three tier prices; Zoho's free plan with invoice limits.Removed: not on the vendors' pages as we read them, or only visible after accepting cookies.
25 October 2026Checker did not scale part-year income; calendar left out the last return sent the old way and the 31 July payment before you start.Both added, following GOV.UK's qualifying income and penalties guidance.
27 October 2026The stopping guide applied a 2026 HMRC-sign-up instruction to all cessations after 6 April 2026.The instruction is explicitly limited to people HMRC signed up for 2026 to 2027. Other circumstances require checking the actual start year and cessation date.
27 October 2026A community concern was worded as a universal claim that software provides no HMRC receipt.Removed that generalisation. The answer uses the official recent-activity check and recognises that software confirmation messages vary.
27 October 2026No National Insurance number today produced a general exemption result; the attorney exemption omitted some conditions.The checker asks for a tax-year-specific HMRC check for NINO cases and states the full 2024 to 2025 return, incapacity and legal-representation conditions. Complex cases no longer produce a calculated start date.
27 October 2026Landlord Studio’s annual-equivalent prices were labelled monthly, and our 25 October correction incorrectly dismissed the £15 / £12 and £1.20 / £1 differences.Pro is £15 + VAT billed monthly or £144 + VAT billed annually (£12/month equivalent). Pro Plus is £30 monthly or £288 annually. Extra-unit rates depend on billing mode; the earlier correction is superseded.
27 October 2026Duplicate HMRC summary rows made LandlordFile appear to create digital records and support sole traders.The current list and detail identify LandlordFile as UK-property bridging software. Summary/detail disagreements now stop data generation; duplicate free/paid variants retain the free flag regardless of order.
27 October 2026The penalty explanation did not clearly separate required users from volunteers and people becoming exempt.Added the volunteer two-point annual-return threshold, no quarterly late-submission points for volunteers, exemption transition and the one-time nature of first-year payment relief.
27 October 2026The checker could infer no relevant income from unselected income boxes when an exemption option was ticked; temporary-exemption cases still requested the exempt year.No income now needs an explicit choice. A temporary 2026–27 exemption excludes that phase from missing-figure checks and is shown in the result table.
27 October 2026MTD Companion said neither official page showed a price; Zoho’s final-return scope was left unclear.The developer FAQ quotes first-year subscriptions from £34.99/year, with renewal price and VAT unverified. Zoho’s expanded MTD panel explicitly includes the final return.

What we do not do

  • We are not HMRC or GOV.UK, and nothing here is tax advice.
  • No vendor pays to be listed, ranked or described. Lists are in A to Z order unless you choose another order. If we ever earn a referral fee, the product page will say so, and it will not change the order or the facts.
  • We do not store what you type into the checker; it runs in your browser.
  • We use AI to help find source pages and draft wording. AI-assisted drafting and automated tests can both make mistakes. We retain source evidence, test specific rules and expose the professional-review status above. We do not publish product reviews or ratings.

What we cannot promise

  • HMRC's software listing is written by HMRC and the vendors. If it is wrong, we repeat the error, though we flag any conflict we find.
  • Prices and free plans change without notice. The date under each price tells you how fresh it is.
  • For Hammock, the full tier table did not render during the latest check, including after cookie consent and selecting a property band. We retain only the openly stated starting price, with VAT and other tiers unverified.
  • The checker follows HMRC's published rules. HMRC decides from your actual tax return, and some situations need professional advice.

See the current contact and operator status. Corrections are recorded here and in what has changed.

The GOV.UK pages behind this site

The earlier source-based editorial check was recorded on 26 October 2026; later targeted corrections appear above. This is not a completed professional review. 17 product prices last read on the dates shown on each product page.