There were some “really big announcements” around paying tax that were trailed in last year’s Autumn Budget, says Lindsey Wicks, Senior Tax Technical Manager for ICAEW. Consultations about these measures were finally released in the Tax Update on 23 June 2026. 

The consultations, include:

• more timely payment of income tax in self assessment,
• requiring VAT and pay as you earn (PAYE) payments to be made by direct debit, and
• extending HMRC’s existing direct recovery of debts powers to lower value tax debts.

Another key consultation that we have been waiting for since last year’s Budget covers HMRC’s proposal for a new recklessness offence for taxpayers and agents.

One surprise in the Tax Update was a wide-ranging consultation on modernising the taxation of distributions and repayments of capital from companies. 

These announcements came just a month after a flurry of tax-related announcements on 20 and 21 May. “Given we're only supposed to have one annual fiscal event, the budget in the autumn, this took us a little bit by surprise,” says Wicks.

The May announcements included fuel duty, vehicle excise duty, and an increase to the authorised mileage rate that can be paid by 10p, the first increase for about 15 years. Wicks suggests that the measures will be in response to hikes in the cost of living and cost of doing business, as a result of the current precarity of global events.

She says: “The other big thing to expect in the next six months is the autumn budget for 2026. The big question is, when will that happen? Last year was 26 November, could it be earlier this year with the change in Prime Minister?”

A return to multi-factor authentication

HMRC announced it is to reintroduce multi-factor authentication on agent accounts, after a failed attempt a few years ago.

“But given the evolving cybersecurity threats, it’s really important that HMRC adds this extra security and on 8 June we received the final timetable for rollout of that to agent accounts,” Wicks says.

Making Tax Digital day of reckoning

“We're currently in the stage where taxpayers or their agents are signing up to the service and starting to do digital record keeping, but it does feel like the calm before the storm at the moment,” says Wicks.

“We won't have the first deadline – the first quarterly updates – until 7 August. So that will be the point where we really test the system.”

Mandatory agent registration

The rollout of mandatory agent registration is being phased with the first phase applying from 18 May – with an 18 August deadline. Wicks points out that this shouldn't affect the majority of ICAEW members in practice, because many will have an agent services account.

“They won't need to do anything until January 2027, but if there are new people setting up in practice, then they will need to think about registering with HMRC,” she confirms.

The adaptation challenge

One of the biggest challenges for members over the coming months, particularly members in practice, is how all of these changes interact.

Wicks explains: “Agents want to provide a really good service to their clients in terms of Making Tax Digital and supporting them through the roll out of that.

“But with agent registration, or when they introduce multi-factor authentication, if anything goes wrong, and they're locked out of their agent accounts, there will be worries about disruption to their service, particularly if that were to happen around a key deadline.”