HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has launched a pilot scheme that will develop a new solution to report income and expenses online.

The pilot will be open to selected businesses and accountants from this month.

The Making Tax Digital for Business (MTDfB) pilot starts this month with selected businesses and accountants and will enable them to use accounting software to record their business income and expenses and send summary reports of their income and expenses direct from their digital. This can be done on a quarterly basis or more often and participants can also sign up to go paperless.

Based on the information they report, customers will get an estimated tax calculation.

Following the initial trials, the pilot – which was explained in a recent HMRC agents blog – will be opened up to other customers who will be able to start to use accounting software to keep their records and, in the longer term, move to quarterly reporting.

Later in the year, HMRC will publish a list of software suppliers who have registered with them and offer compatible software, some of which is free.