QE Tax Flash: The tax burden gets heavier

From April 2026, HM Revenue and Customs will impose new quarterly digital tax reporting requirements on self-employed individuals and landlords in the UK. The new obligations are complex and demand that taxpayers use HMRC-compatible software to record income and expenditure, with separate updates required for each income stream. At the same time, complaints about HMRC are reported to have hit a five-year high of 93,589 in 2024-25, indicating that HMRC are already struggling to satisfy existing taxpayer needs. The QE team comments on this below. 

Liesl Fichardt: “The administrative friction of UK tax compliance, which is already significant, is about to increase substantially, particularly on high net worth and entrepreneurial individuals.”

Emily Au: “Quarterly reporting creates four times the touchpoints between taxpayers and HMRC, accompanied by more opportunities for misunderstandings or errors. Adding this complexity to an already strained system, without adequate support, is not a recipe for helping taxpayers get things right.” 

Julius Berling: “The Financial Times have aptly called it “Making Tax Difficult”, and that is even more so at a time when HMRC’s own service levels are already failing to keep pace.”

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