Who runs this — and why trust it

This is a solo-run, independent guide to Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, written for the people who actually have to file it — landlords and sole traders. It isn’t an accountancy firm, it isn’t a software vendor, and it has no connection to HMRC.

That independence is the point. The generic “best MTD software” lists are written by accounting publishers for everyone at once, so they skate over the two situations that actually decide your answer: jointly owned property, where one property means two taxpayers and two sets of records, and combined income, where rents and self-employment turnover are added together and quietly push people over a threshold a year early.

Why the free options are front and centre

Plenty of people won’t need to pay for anything — a free bank-linked tier, a free landlord or sole-trader plan, or cheap bridging software for spreadsheet-keepers. We say so plainly. Recommending the free routes where they fit is exactly what makes the paid recommendations worth trusting.

How this is funded

Some links to software are affiliate links, so we may earn a commission if you sign up through them — at no extra cost to you. It never changes the ranking, and we deliberately feature the free options that pay us nothing. See the full affiliate disclosure.

How the facts are kept accurate

Every factual claim in the comparison — prices, free tiers, and especially how each tool handles jointly owned property — is checked against the provider’s own site or documentation, never assumed. There’s a monthly verification pass, and the “last verified” date you see across the site is both a trust signal and our forcing function.

The editorial process, concretely

1. Vendor page or it doesn’t ship. Prices and free tiers come from the provider’s own pricing page. Third-party roundups are used only as a lead to check, never as the source — one aggregator-sourced “free tier” turned out not to exist, which is why this rule exists.
2. Every claim carries a date and a source. The underlying dataset stores a verified_on date and source reference against each group of facts, and the site renders the oldest of those as the visible “last verified” date.
3. Uncertainty is shown, not hidden. Where we can’t confirm a capability from a reliable source — joint-ownership handling is the usual case — it’s labelled “Check” with a note telling you to verify with the provider, rather than guessed.
4. Rules come from GOV.UK. Thresholds, deadlines and penalties are stated as HMRC states them, with a link to the relevant guidance so you can check us.
5. Corrections are made immediately and the verification date moves with them.

What we are not

We are not accountants, not tax advisers, and not regulated to give financial advice. We don’t file returns, don’t see your figures — the calculator runs entirely in your browser and stores nothing — and we have no commercial relationship with HMRC. Where your circumstances are unusual (unequal beneficial ownership, mixed income sources, overseas property), the right move is a qualified accountant, and we’ll say so rather than pretend a comparison table settles it.

This is information, not advice

Everything here is general information to help you decide, not tax or financial advice for your specific situation. For anything that turns on the detail of your circumstances, check GOV.UK or speak to a qualified accountant.