E-BOOK
Making Tax Digital for Landlords
Eight chapters on four quarterly updates and a year-end declaration in place of the return. Property income counts, it counts gross, and the first phase started on 6 April 2026. Chapter two decides whether the rest applies to you, and it turns on a figure the finance cost restriction actively hides.
- Eight chapters, four tables, both sets of quarter dates
- Joint ownership done properly, which most MTD guidance skips
- A chapter on what does not change, which is most of it
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Who this e-book is for
Landlords who need to know whether this applies to them, from when, and what has to be working before the first deadline, including couples who own property together and are measured separately.
Your mortgage makes your profit look too small to matter
That is exactly the trap. Qualifying income is gross rent before a single expense and before the finance cost restriction, so the landlords most confident they are out of scope are the heavily geared ones most likely to be in. A landlord taking £60,000 with £45,000 of interest has almost no profit and is in from April 2026 regardless.
You own the portfolio with your spouse
Chapter three is the one written for you. Each owner counts their own share, and married couples are 50:50 by default whatever the deeds say unless a Form 17 says otherwise. The same £60,000 portfolio puts a sole owner in scope from 2026 and a couple at £30,000 each in from 2028, two years later, from nothing but the ownership.
You are braced for quarterly tax bills
There are none, and the book has a whole chapter on what does not change, because most MTD anxiety is about things that are staying exactly as they are. The updates are running totals with no payment attached, the money still moves on 31 January and 31 July, and the finance cost reduction is applied at the year end as before.
FACTS
The three phases, and the boundary that surprises people
Over £50,000 of gross income from 6 April 2026, over £30,000 from 2027, over £20,000 from 2028, each measured on the tax year two years before. The thresholds are over, not at, so exactly £50,000 misses the first phase and clears the second.
8 chapters
Four tables
2 years
What joint ownership delays on the same £60,000 portfolio
FACTS
What a digital link actually is
Any transfer of figures between systems without a person retyping them. An export and import counts, a formula pulling from another sheet counts, reading a total off a bank statement and typing it in does not. A spreadsheet is still allowed, but only with bridging software carrying the figures to HMRC, and the underlying invoices and statements are kept for five years exactly as before.