Getting help with MTD: who to ask, as GOV.UK explains

Niamh is fictional, but the moment she has reached can come for anyone using Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax. She lets two houses, and she is in her first year of keeping digital records and sending quarterly updates. After her latest update, her software shows a figure she does not recognise, and she is not sure whether to ask the company that makes the software, ring HMRC or look for the answer somewhere else. This guide sets out what GOV.UK says about who helps with what, so that someone in her position knows where to turn.

GOV.UK’s help and support page for MTD starts from the same point. You can get different types of support when using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax depending on what you need help with and which tax year it relates to. Acrenvo is not HMRC and cannot answer questions about your own tax affairs, so the routes below are the ones GOV.UK gives, in the order it gives them.

Questions about the software go to its provider

Niamh’s first question is about something her software is showing her, and GOV.UK is clear about who answers that kind of question. HMRC cannot give advice about specific software products. Each product will work differently depending on how the software provider has developed it. That is why GOV.UK sends product questions to the provider: the same task can look quite different from one product to the next, and the provider is the one that knows how its own software behaves. Your software provider should have guidance on how to use their software. Contact your provider directly if you need any additional support.

So if a screen, a setting or a figure in the software is the puzzle, the provider’s own guidance and support are the place to start. The year-end guide explains what GOV.UK asks you to do if the tax calculation still looks wrong after speaking to the provider.

HMRC’s digital assistant, for general questions

For questions about MTD itself, rather than about a product, GOV.UK points first to HMRC’s digital assistant, which you can reach from its help and support page. You can ask HMRC’s digital assistant for help with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, including:

• who needs to sign up and when
• checking if you can get an exemption
• how to choose the right software
• how to sign up
• how to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

It is worth knowing the limit before you start, so that you know what kind of answer to expect. It cannot help with personalised advice but can offer guidance to answer your questions.

When to contact HMRC directly

If the guidance and the digital assistant do not settle the question, GOV.UK names two places to go. If you cannot find the support you need in HMRC’s guidance, you can contact:

• Self Assessment: general enquiries
• the agent dedicated line (if you’re an agent)

Those GOV.UK pages hold the current phone numbers, opening times and other ways to get in touch. This guide links to them rather than repeating the details, so that you always see HMRC’s own, up to date version.

A separate team for people who tested MTD early

Some people used MTD before it became a requirement, and GOV.UK gives them a different route for those earlier years. If you or your client signed up to test Making Tax Digital for Income Tax for either the 2024 to 2025 or 2025 to 2026 tax years, then you can get support from HMRC’s dedicated customer support team. They can help with any queries that you have in relation to those tax years. The customer support team’s phone number is in the letter you received confirming you’d signed up to Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

The team can help with:

• income and expenses to include in quarterly updates
• support with submitting the 2025 to 2026 tax return (due by 31 January 2027)
• payments and refunds
• deadlines
• penalties
• reporting of errors in calculations, statements, and payments resulting from submissions
• Self Assessment and Capital Gains Tax including the years before you or your client started using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

The team’s remit has edges as well, and GOV.UK lists them. The team cannot help with queries that are about:

• the 2026 to 2027 tax year and later tax years
• Corporation Tax, VAT, or National Insurance (except for Self Assessment)
• software product advice — contact your software provider directly for support

Niamh did not take part in the testing, so this team is not her route. For someone who did, it is the place to start for those earlier years, with the general routes above covering later ones.

If you signed up for the wrong tax year

GOV.UK treats this differently depending on how you came to be using MTD. If you joined voluntarily, the choice of year was yours. When you volunteered to sign up to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, you were given the option to sign up for the current tax year or the next tax year. If you chose the wrong year, you should contact Self Assessment: general enquiries for support. The contact details are on GOV.UK’s Self Assessment general enquiries page.

If you are required to use MTD, GOV.UK puts the first step with HMRC instead. HMRC will contact you if HMRC notices any problems with the tax year that you signed up for. The guide to signing up voluntarily explains the choice of year in more detail.

Claiming a refund

A refund is one thing the MTD tax return cannot do, so it helps to know the route GOV.UK gives instead. If you think you are due a tax refund, you cannot claim the refund in your tax return using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. There are different ways to request a refund depending on how you submitted your tax return.

If you submitted your tax return using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax software, you need to request the refund using your HMRC online services account. The sign-in page is GOV.UK’s HMRC online services page. If you submitted your client’s tax return as an agent using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax software, you need to request a refund using your agent services account and provide your client’s bank account details. Agents sign in through their agent services account.

If you or your agent submitted your Self Assessment tax return before signing up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, you can find more information on how to claim a tax refund. It is on GOV.UK’s page about claiming a Self Assessment tax refund.

If someone using MTD has died

This is a hard time to be dealing with tax, so this section keeps to what GOV.UK says. If someone who has been using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax dies, then their obligations stop. Their personal representative must tell HMRC about the death and must make sure any outstanding tax returns are completed. The personal representative does not need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax on behalf of the person. This means they do not need to:

• create digital records
• send any outstanding quarterly updates
• submit any returns using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax software

GOV.UK’s page on tax returns for someone who has died explains what the personal representative may need to do next.

Where to go next

For the bigger picture, the main MTD guide explains who MTD applies to and how the year fits together, and the guide to year-end adjustments and your MTD tax return covers the final step of each year. If you would rather hand MTD to an accountant, the guide to letting an accountant act for you on MTD explains what they set up, and the page on choosing an accountant for MTD explains how to find one. GOV.UK’s help and support page has the routes in full.

Questions people ask about getting help with MTD