Volunteer for the Making Tax Digital for Income Tax beta

How to volunteer for the Making Tax Digital (MTD) Income Tax beta in Sage Accounting to send quarterly updates, tax adjustments and a final declaration directly to HMRC. By joining, you commit to using the new MTD submission process instead of the traditional SA103 form for the 2025/2026 tax year.

The Making Tax Digital for Income Tax beta is designed to help test the new Income Tax regulations coming into force from April 2026. These regulations will replace the current Self Assessment SA103 tax form submission.

 NOTE: There's no additional charge to your subscription for using this feature. 

You can volunteer if: 

• You only have one income source
• Your income isn’t from property
• You use traditional accounting, also known as 'accruals'
• You aren’t bankrupt or insolvent
• You’re signed up for MTD for Income Tax with HMRC: gov.uk/sign-up-your-business-for-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax

1. From Settings, go to Business settings.
2. Within Financial settings, select Income Tax.
3. Select Start, then Enable to confirm that you agree to volunteer in the beta.

Once you've joined the beta:

• We add an Income Tax category field to each ledger account which you can view in the chart of accounts
  
• If you're using standard ledger accounts, we'll automatically assign the Income Tax category to your income and expense ledger accounts
• If you're using custom ledger accounts, you'll need to map these to the relevant Income Tax category from the chart of accounts
• We add a Tax report for managing your quarterly updates

By joining the beta, you commit to:

• Submitting quarterly income and expense updates via MTD
• Completing a final declaration including informing HMRC of tax allowances and adjustments, replacing the current SA103 form for the 2025/2026 tax year

What's next?

• Connect your software to HMRC
• View your Income Tax summary
• Submit Income Tax quarterly update
• Assign Income Tax categories