How We Check the Figures: Making Tax Digital Rules From GOV.UK, HMRC Manuals and legislation.gov.uk Only
Published
Every figure on this site is printed from a research record of an official page, with its source and the day it was checked. This page follows one figure from GOV.UK to the page you read.
Which pages count as a source
Only official ones: GOV.UK (HMRC’s guidance, manuals, policy papers and press releases, and the Budget documents) and the law itself on legislation.gov.uk. We use other websites only to find an official page, never as the source of a rule. Where the law and HMRC’s guidance say different things, the law decides. Where the law is silent, we follow HMRC’s guidance as it stands.
The research record
Each rule is kept as a research record. It holds the official page’s exact words, where on the page they are, the page’s own “Last updated” date where it shows one, and the day we read it. This is the record behind the April 2027 threshold, as it is kept.
| Official page | Find out if and when you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (GOV.UK) |
|---|---|
| Where on the page | Who needs to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax |
| Exact words | “£30,000 for the 2025 to 2026 tax year, you will need to use it from 6 April 2027” |
| Page last updated | 26 March 2026 |
| Read on | 6 November 2026 |
| Status | Confirmed |
A record also says how firm the rule is. Most are confirmed. Where two official pages disagree, both are recorded and the rule is marked as conflicting, and the calculator says which reading it follows wherever that changes an answer. Where the official pages don’t answer a question at all, the gap is written down. The calculator then leaves that part out or says what it assumed. It never fills the gap quietly.
From the records to the page
A program turns the records into one rules file. It checks the main figures against the words quoted for them, and stops if a quote doesn’t contain its figure. The figures on a page are then printed from that file, with its sources and the day they were checked. On a page, the record above reads like this.
If your qualifying income for the 2025 to 2026 tax year was over £30,000, you’ll need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax from 6 April 2027.
Source: Find out if and when you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (GOV.UK). Checked 6 November 2026.
The page build stops if it finds an amount in pounds, a percentage or a day and month typed in by hand, outside the made-up figures of an example. So none of those can reach a page without a record behind it. The calculators run the same rules file in your browser, so the figures in the pages and the calculators’ answers come from the same place.
Announced, but not yet law
Something announced but not yet law is always marked as announced, with the date it was announced. The calculator shows it beside the result and doesn’t apply it. For example, the Budget on 28 October 2026 announced that people eligible for qualifying care relief, among others, will be exempt until further notice. Until the law changes, the calculator applies the law as it stands and says what was announced.
Source: Budget 2026 — Overview of tax legislation and rates (OOTLAR) (Budget document, GOV.UK). Checked 6 November 2026.
Who checks the pages
Before each batch of pages goes live, a separate review attacks it, checking the figures and the statements of the rules against the research records. We write the pages, build the calculators and run the research and these reviews with the help of AI tools. Every figure still has to come from a record of an official page.
People read the pages too. A reviewer named on the About page reads every page and reports any problem she finds, and it is fixed at its source. Where she or Piyush Choudhary, who publishes the site, has also checked a page’s figures line by line, the page says so under its title, with the day. If the page’s words change after that, that line comes off until it is checked again.
If you find something wrong
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