Free Making Tax Digital software for Income Tax, built for people who use Excel.

Yes. aligned.tax is officially HMRC-recognised software for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, recognised in July 2026. That means it passed HMRC's production approval checks and files through HMRC's official MTD API. 'Recognised' is the term HMRC uses - HMRC does not approve or endorse individual products. Read the announcement.

Yes. aligned.tax is free, HMRC-recognised MTD software for Income Tax - filing your own quarterly updates is free, always, with no credit card. Accountants and bookkeepers get their first three clients free, then simple per-client pricing. A few accounting packages offer free tiers too, and GOV.UK lists every compatible option. What "free" really means under MTD.

Bridging software typically costs £5 to £10 +VAT per month - £72 to £144 a year - and full accounting packages run from around £10 to £40+ per month. With aligned.tax, filing your own MTD quarterly updates is £0, always, with no card. See the pricing page for the full picture.

No. HMRC does not provide its own filing software for MTD for Income Tax - you must use compatible third-party software, which GOV.UK lists. Free options exist, including aligned.tax, which is HMRC-recognised and free for individuals filing their own quarterly updates.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment. From April 2026, sole traders and landlords earning over £50,000 must keep digital records and submit quarterly updates to HMRC. The threshold drops to £30,000 from April 2027.

No. That's the whole point. Upload whatever you've got, even if it's messy. Smart Map reads your spreadsheet and figures out what goes where. You review the mapping, make any tweaks, and submit.

Yes. HMRC lets you keep your records in Excel, Google Sheets or another spreadsheet, as long as you file through software that connects to HMRC. aligned.tax does exactly that: you upload your spreadsheet, review the figures, and we submit your quarterly update. Here is how it works with Excel.

As long as you need to. Using a spreadsheet with bridging software is a valid, ongoing way to meet Making Tax Digital, not a temporary workaround, and there is no time limit on it. More on spreadsheets and MTD.

Smart Map sends a prepared view of your spreadsheet to Anthropic's API so it can suggest how cells map to HMRC fields. The view includes spreadsheet structure, labels and financial figures, but recognised personal identifiers such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses and National Insurance numbers are redacted before the request is sent. Your original spreadsheet file is not sent to Anthropic. The model returns cell references only, and you review every suggestion before anything is submitted to HMRC. Anthropic states that commercial API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default and are deleted within 30 days under its standard policy, subject to its safety and legal exceptions.

Your choice. You can store it securely on our platform for your records, or have it deleted immediately after submission. Either way, we keep only the summary data that was sent to HMRC. Nothing more.

You can also delete your entire account and all associated data at any time from your account settings. No hoops, no retention period, no need to contact support.

Year-end filing support is in active development and will be available soon. You won't need a separate platform. Quarterly and annual submissions will all be handled in aligned.tax.

MTD for Income Tax is a legal requirement from April 2026. You still need to keep digital records and submit quarterly updates. However, HMRC's soft landing means no penalty points for late quarterly submissions in year one (April 2026 to April 2027). It's time to get set up, not time to ignore it. aligned.tax is free for individuals filing their own updates.

Not at all. aligned.tax works for anyone who needs to file under MTD ITSA: sole traders, landlords, and accountants managing clients. The multi-client dashboard is particularly useful for practices, but if you're filing for yourself it's just as simple. Our help centre has step-by-step guidance for each account type.

For individuals, yes. Filing your own MTD Income Tax quarterly updates is free, always - a commitment, not a launch offer. For accountants and bookkeepers, everything is free until April 2027 and the first three clients stay free forever; the per-client pricing that applies from the 2027/28 tax year is published in full on the pricing page.

There's no catch. Filing your own quarterly updates is free, and always will be - no credit card required. If you are an accountant, practice pricing is published openly: first three clients free, then a simple per-client price. Your connection to HMRC is secure, you review every figure before anything is submitted, and your data is encrypted with two-factor authentication on every account.

Yes. In Google Sheets, go to File > Download > Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) and upload the downloaded file. The same applies to Apple Numbers (File > Export To > Excel) or LibreOffice Calc (Save As > .xlsx). aligned.tax needs an .xlsx file, but any spreadsheet app can export one in a few clicks.

All data is encrypted at rest and in transit. We enforce two-factor authentication on all accounts and maintain a complete audit trail. You choose whether aligned.tax keeps your original spreadsheet after submission or deletes it. For Smart Map, aligned.tax sends Anthropic only the prepared view described above, not the original file, and redacts recognised personal identifiers before the API request.