Tough on Tax: 5 things to do before your first MTD update
Your first Making Tax Digital update may be due soon, by 7 August 2026.
You are mandated within Making Tax Digital (MTD) this year if your 2024-25 qualifying income was over £50,000. From April 2027, that mandate drops to £30,000, so if you're not affected yet, you soon will be.
That's the whole point of Tough on Tax. HMRC isn't going soft on this, so neither are we. Portfolio and Taxd exist to take the admin off your plate and keep you compliant without the stress. Here are five things worth doing before your next update, and five questions we hear most from NRLA landlords about the whole process.
Not sure where to start? See how Portfolio handles your MTD record-keeping.
5 things to do before your next update
1. File up to ten days early
HMRC lets you submit a quarterly update up to ten days before the period officially closes, as long as you're confident no more transactions are coming in.
Away that week, or just want deadline day off your mind? File early and get on with your week. Worth remembering for every quarter this year, not just the first.
2. Register with HMRC before you connect Portfolio to Taxd
Get the order right and setup takes minutes: sign up with HMRC for Making Tax Digital first, then connect Portfolio to Taxd.
Connect too early and HMRC won't have anything to hand over yet, which can leave your property showing as unregistered even once everything else is set up correctly. If that happens, confirm your HMRC registration in your Government Gateway account, then head to your Taxd MTD settings and hit "Refresh Businesses" to pull your details across again.
3. Keep your records digital… not necessarily live
Making Tax Digital requires digital records, not real-time ones. Sitting down once before each deadline and entering everything in a batch is entirely within the rules.
Connect your bank feed in Portfolio and log things as you go, and each quarterly update becomes a five-minute check rather than a job. Either way works, pick whichever suits how you actually run things.
4. Pick quarter dates that suit your bookkeeping
The standard update periods follow the tax year: 6 April to 5 July, and so on. But if calendar month-ends fit your routine better, you can elect to use those instead, 1 April to 30 June for quarter one, with exactly the same deadlines.
Just make the choice before your first submission of the tax year. If you've already filed, it's one to set up for next April.
5. Track multiple properties separately, submit them as one
Own more than one property? Keep each one's income and expenses on its own record, so you can still see exactly how each is performing, and let Portfolio roll everything into a single combined submission to HMRC.
Property-by-property visibility for you, one clean figure for HMRC.
5 common queries about your MTD update, answered
Will I owe anything the day I submit?
No, a quarterly update is a summary of your income and expenses, not a bill. It doesn't move any money and doesn't change your payment dates, which stay exactly where they've always been. The deadline costs you a few minutes in Portfolio, not a penny from your account.
What if I get a figure wrong, or a quarter runs late?
You've got more room than you'd think. Each update is cumulative, covering everything from the start of the tax year to the end of that quarter, so a repair bill you missed in May simply flows into your next update in September. Penalties for this kind of thing don't apply to quarterly updates at all, and HMRC has confirmed no penalty points for late updates during 2026/27 for anyone brought into MTD from April 2026. The standard is complete and reasonable, not audit-perfect.
Do I need to categorise every expense?
Only if your rental income is £90,000 or more. Below that, you qualify for simplified reporting: your quarterly update just needs your total income and your total expenses, no category breakdown required. Portfolio can still categorise everything behind the scenes if you want the detail for your own records.
I jointly own a property, what changes for us?
Less than you'd expect. You each report only your own share of the income every quarter, and a dedicated easement lets you deal with expenses once, at year end, rather than splitting and reporting the boiler repair four times over. Combine that with the £90,000 easement above, and a jointly owned property can shrink to a single income figure each quarter. You can find more on how this works for joint owners in our MTD questions answered article.
Will I know what I owe before January?
Yes, every quarterly update gives you an in-year estimate of your tax position based on the figures so far. That means by August, not the following January, you'll have a rough sense of what's coming, with time to put money aside or plan ahead while there's still a chance to act. It won't be your final number, since other income, reliefs and adjustments still apply, but it's the most useful early warning MTD gives you.
Getting tough on tax, together
None of this is about doing more work, it's about knowing the handful of rules that make MTD lighter than it looks. Portfolio keeps your records straight; Taxd, our HMRC-recognised tax partner, handles the submissions. Between the two, quarterly updates become a five-minute job, not a quarterly dread.
Download the free MTD guide for the full plain-English walkthrough, or join the NRLA to get Portfolio included with your membership.
