A tax expert and accountancy Partner at one of South West England’s leading firms has said that Making Tax Digital (MTD) was the “elephant in the room” during yesterday’s Autumn Statement announcements.

Simon Denton, Partner and tax specialist at Milsted Langdon LLP, which has offices in London and across South West England, said: “This Autumn Statement has lacked some of the large tax announcements that we have seen in recent years.

“The elephant in the room is undoubtedly the lack of any announcement about Making Tax Digital, the Government’s plan to make all but the smallest business maintain their records digitally and submit them quarterly to HMRC which was due to start in April 2018.

“The Chancellor’s surprise move to dance around the details comes against a rising tide of criticism, with numerous bodies calling upon the Government for the MTD project to be delayed in recent weeks”.

Mr Denton suggested that the Chancellor had missed a beat in embracing an opportunity to provide clarity and certainty to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and self-employed taxpayers, who had “long-awaited further information and certainty on the MTD project”.

The project received a very brief mention in the Autumn Statement documents, confirming that the Government’s response to Making Tax Digital consultations, which have been running since 15 August, will be released in January 2017.

Mr Denton said that SMEs had no choice but to “continue to play the waiting game”.