Making Tax Digital Q1 Is Done: What Musicians Need to Do Next
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
The first Making Tax Digital for Income Tax quarterly deadline has officially been and gone.
For musicians who came into Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax from April 2026, the first quarterly update was due to HMRC by August 7th 2026.
If you submitted yours on time, congratulations; Q1 is officially ticked off the list!
But before you close your accounting software and forget about MTD for another few months, this is actually a really useful time to take stock.
What worked? What was harder than expected? Were you scrambling around looking for receipts? Did you discover income you'd forgotten to record? And, most importantly, what can you do now to make Q2 easier?
Here’s what musicians need to know now that the first MTD quarterly deadline has passed.
First things first: what did you actually submit?
One of the common misconceptions around Making Tax Digital is that you're effectively completing four tax returns every year.
You're not.
Your MTD quarterly updates are summaries of the income and expenses recorded in your digital records.
If you use standard update periods, your first update covered April 6th to July 5th, with a submission deadline of August 7th.
Importantly, your quarterly update is not your tax return, and you don't need to make accounting or tax adjustments before sending it.
Your quarterly updates also don't change the date on which you actually pay your tax.
So, while Q1 was an important first milestone, there's still plenty more to come during the tax year.
What happens after your first MTD quarterly update?
The biggest change with MTD isn't necessarily the quarterly submission itself.
It's the move towards keeping your financial records digitally and up to date throughout the year.
For musicians, that can take a little getting used to.
Your income might not arrive neatly from one source every month. You could be receiving:
Gig and Performance Fees
Teaching Income
Session Fees
Royalties
Conducting or Arranging fees
Freelance or Dep income
Other Self-Employed Income
Then there are your business expenses to keep on top of too.
Rather than letting everything accumulate until your next MTD deadline, now is the time to get into a regular record-keeping routine.
A few minutes spent keeping things updated throughout the quarter could save you a much bigger job when the next deadline rolls around.
When is the next Making Tax Digital deadline?
Your next MTD quarterly update is due by:
November 7th 2026.
For those using the standard quarterly periods, your second update covers the period from April 6th to October 5th 2026.
That's an important point to understand.
Quarterly updates are cumulative. In other words, the second update doesn't simply report the three months from July to October. It covers your records from the beginning of the tax year up to the end of that quarterly period.
This also means that if you spot something in your digital records that needs correcting after Q1, you don't necessarily need to panic about resubmitting your first quarterly update. Corrections made to your records can be reflected in the subsequent cumulative update.
Your standard MTD quarterly deadlines are:
August 7th – covering April 6th to July 5th (reporting year-to-date totals for 3 months)
November 7th – covering July 6th to October 5th (reporting year-to-date totals for 6 months)
February 7th – covering October 6th to January 5th (reporting year-to-date totals for 9 months)
May 7th – covering January 6th to April 5th (reporting year-to-date totals for 12 months)
If you're using calendar update periods instead, the periods themselves are slightly different, but the submission deadlines remain the same.
What if you missed the first MTD deadline?
If August 7th passed you by, don't ignore it.
There is, however, an important concession for this first year of mandatory MTD for Income Tax.
HMRC will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026/27 tax year.
That doesn't mean you can simply skip the update.
You still need to maintain your digital records and send all of your required quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return.
From subsequent tax years, late quarterly submissions can result in penalty points, with a £200 penalty applying once the relevant points threshold is reached.
So, if you've missed Q1, use this as an opportunity to get your records up to date and establish a system before the next deadline rather than allowing the problem to snowball.
Five things to learn from your first MTD quarter
Whether Q1 went beautifully or involved some last-minute panic, it has probably taught you something about your current record-keeping system.
1. Don't wait until the deadline to record your income
Musicians can have income coming from multiple places, which makes it particularly easy for something to be overlooked.
Get into the habit of recording income as you go rather than trying to reconstruct three months of work just before an MTD deadline.
2. Create a system for your receipts
If Q1 involved searching your email, pockets, gig bags and glove compartment for receipts, Q2 is your chance to do things differently!
Decide where receipts will go as soon as you receive them.
Depending on the software and system you're using, that could mean photographing and uploading them immediately or having one dedicated digital location for anything that still needs to be processed.
The best system isn't necessarily the fanciest one.
It's the one you'll actually use.
3. Be careful with mixed personal and business spending
This can be particularly relevant when you're self-employed.
Perhaps you've paid for strings, reeds, sheet music or travel using your personal bank account. Or perhaps a personal purchase has accidentally gone through the account you use for your music business.
Keeping on top of these transactions as they happen can make your quarterly record keeping much easier.
4. Check that your software setup is working for you
Q1 was your first real opportunity to test your MTD system under deadline conditions.
Ask yourself:
Did it actually work for you?
If recording transactions felt unnecessarily complicated, your categories weren't set up correctly, or you're still unsure how information is flowing through your software, now is a much better time to address it than the week before November 7th.
Don't automatically assume that struggling with your first quarter means you're "bad at bookkeeping".
Sometimes the system itself needs improving.
5. Build MTD into your normal working routine
MTD is going to be much easier if it becomes part of how you run your music business rather than something you only think about four times a year.
You could set aside a regular time each week or month to:
Record Income
Process Expenses
Upload Receipts
Check Transactions
Make sure nothing is missing
It doesn't need to become a huge bookkeeping session.
Little and often can make a significant difference.
Can I see how much tax I owe after my quarterly update?
Once you've sent a quarterly update, you may be able to see an estimated tax calculation through your compatible software or HMRC online services.
But remember: this is an estimate.
Your final tax position can be affected by adjustments, allowances, reliefs and other sources of income or gains that aren't necessarily reflected in your quarterly update.
So don't treat the figure you see after Q1 as your final tax bill.
It can, however, be a useful indication of how your tax position is developing during the year.
And that brings us to another good habit...
Keep putting money aside for tax
Making Tax Digital hasn't changed one fundamental reality of self-employment:
You still need to make sure there's money available when your tax bill falls due.
If you don't already have a separate tax pot, now could be a good time to consider one.
Setting aside a portion of your self-employed income as you receive it can help prevent your future tax bill from competing with your everyday spending.
The right amount to put aside will depend on your individual circumstances, so avoid assuming that one percentage will work for everyone.
MTD Q1 wasn't perfect? That's okay.
The first quarter was always going to involve a learning curve.
This is a significant change to the way hundreds of thousands of sole traders manage their tax affairs, and musicians have the added challenge of often having multiple and irregular sources of income.
The goal now isn't to forget about MTD until November.
It's to use what you've learned from Q1 to make the next quarter easier.
Take a few minutes now to look at your process.
What caused the most hassle?
What did you leave until the last minute?
What could you automate?
What could you start recording sooner?
Fixing one or two small problems now could make a big difference when your next quarterly deadline arrives.
Not yet required to use Making Tax Digital?
If you're a self-employed musician but weren't required to join MTD for Income Tax in April 2026, it's still worth paying attention to how the system works.
MTD is being introduced in stages, based on qualifying income.
The first group entered MTD from April 2026, but more sole traders and landlords will come within the rules as the income threshold reduces in future tax years.
Getting comfortable with digital record keeping before you're required to make quarterly updates could make that transition considerably easier.
Need more help with Making Tax Digital as a Musician?
We have a dedicated Making Tax Digital Resource Hub for musicians, where you'll find information and resources to help you understand what MTD means and how to prepare.
You can also follow Musicians' Tax Advisor through this blog, newsletter and social media for practical tax information created specifically with musicians in mind.
Next MTD quarterly update deadline: November 7th 2026.
Maybe put that one in the diary now. 🎵
The information in this article is general guidance only and does not constitute individual tax advice. Tax rules and individual circumstances vary, so you should seek professional advice where appropriate.
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