Making Tax Digital for Income Tax goes live on 6 April 2026. If your gross rental income is over £50,000, you must file quarterly Property Business submissions through HMRC-recognised software. OwnProperly is built for this from the ground up — connect once with gov.uk OAuth, sync your rent and expenses, and submit each quarter with one click.
MTD ITSA (Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment) replaces the annual self-assessment for affected landlords with four quarterly digital submissions plus a final end-of-period statement. HMRC will only accept these submissions from recognised software via their MTD API — spreadsheets alone are not allowed.
The exact thresholds and timeline:
Quarter deadlines fall one month and seven days after each quarter end. For the first MTD year, that's:
Click "Connect HMRC" in Settings. You'll be redirected to gov.uk, sign in with your Government Gateway credentials, and authorise OwnProperly to file on your behalf. Tokens are encrypted at rest.
Enter your National Insurance Number and HMRC property business reference once. OwnProperly validates these against HMRC's records before any submission.
Your rent payments and property expenses (already in OwnProperly for compliance + rent tracking) feed the quarterly figures automatically. Mortgage interest is tracked separately for Section 24.
Two weeks before each deadline, OwnProperly emails you. Open the quarter, review the totals (income, expenses, mortgage interest, deductible costs) and check for missing items.
One click. OwnProperly sends the submission with the required fraud-prevention headers and returns the HMRC reference number. You get an immediate confirmation email.
Every submission is stored with the exact payload sent, HMRC's response, and a timestamped log. If HMRC ever queries it, you have the evidence ready to download.
Since April 2020, mortgage interest on residential lettings can no longer be deducted as an expense for personal-name landlords. Instead, you receive a 20% tax credit on the finance cost. This is the biggest tax shock for higher-rate landlords who haven't yet incorporated.
OwnProperly tracks mortgage interest separately from other property expenses (HMRC requires this — it goes into "residentialFinancialCost" on the quarterly submission) and applies the 20% restriction to your personal-name properties automatically. Limited company (SPV) properties are unaffected, and OwnProperly detects the distinction from your account type setting.
You also get a year-one Section 24 calculator on every property (and on the Deals page for purchases you're considering), so you can model the real after-tax return before you commit.
MTD ITSA starts on 6 April 2026 for landlords and self-employed individuals with qualifying income above £50,000. From 6 April 2027 it extends to those with income above £30,000. Affected landlords must file quarterly digital submissions to HMRC instead of an annual self-assessment.
Yes. HMRC requires MTD ITSA submissions to come from recognised software via API. Spreadsheets are not allowed unless connected via "bridging software". OwnProperly is built as an MTD-compatible solution — connect once via HMRC gov.uk OAuth and file quarterly directly from the dashboard.
Four quarterly Property Business submissions plus a final declaration at the end of the tax year. Quarter deadlines fall one month and seven days after each quarter end (so the 6 April–5 July quarter is due 5 August). Missing a deadline triggers penalty points and ultimately fines.
Yes. OwnProperly tracks mortgage interest separately from other expenses (HMRC requires this — it goes into "residentialFinancialCost" on the submission, not the main expenses bucket) and applies the 20% basic-rate restriction to your personal-name properties automatically. Limited company properties are unaffected.
No. Limited company landlords file Corporation Tax, not Self Assessment. OwnProperly detects this from your account type setting and hides the MTD ITSA page for SPV-only portfolios. The Section 24 restriction does not apply to limited company income either.
OwnProperly currently submits to the HMRC sandbox (test) environment by default — every account can practice end-to-end without risk. Production access is gated by HMRC's production-approval review (typical lead time 4-6 weeks from application). Once approved, users flip a single Sandbox toggle off.
Yes. OwnProperly stores HMRC OAuth tokens encrypted at rest using AES-GCM with a per-deployment key. The fraud-prevention headers required by HMRC are computed per submission. A database dump alone cannot impersonate a user. We are committed to following HMRC's MTD security guidance and to commissioning an annual penetration test.