19 January 2021: HMRC has opened its portal to allow taxpayers and intermediaries to report arrangements that fall under OECD mandatory disclosure rules, but agent functionality is not yet available.

While the UK is no longer implementing DAC 6 (the EU legislation on disclosing arrangements) those that fall within the OECD mandatory disclosure rules (MDR) must still be reported to HMRC.

The first disclosures must be made by 30 January 2021. These are for arrangements which were made available for implementation, or which were ready for implementation, or where the first step in the implementation took place between 1 July 2020 and 31 December 2020.

While the portal has opened for taxpayers to make these disclosures, the facility for agents to report on behalf of their clients (who could be parties or intermediaries to the arrangement) is not yet available. ICAEW’s Tax Faculty advises that those with disclosures to make should register now to ensure they are ready to do so when they are able to.

Those who are registered as agents can report in their own capacity, however, if they themselves are intermediaries or relevant taxpayers. At present, reports can only be made via an XML file upload, but manual reporting will be available soon.

If you have a report to make, but are unsure of the process, the Tax Faculty has contacts at HMRC who would be happy to walk you through the process. Contact richard.jones@icaew.com for support.

Registering for MDR

Before making a disclosure to HMRC, you must first register. HMRC opened up the registration page for MDR for taxpayers, intermediaries and their agents earlier this month.

Businesses registering will need:

• the Government Gateway user ID and password for the business;
• the Unique Taxpayer Reference for the business, if it has one; and
• the registered name for the business on its incorporation certificate.

Registration must be carried out by a user whose Government Gateway credentials are at administrator level. Businesses which are also registered as agents should use their organisation credentials, not their agent credentials.

Individuals registering will need:

• their Government Gateway user ID and password, and
• their national insurance number, (if they have one).