TapTax vs MTD 4 Income Tax
The most complete £20 on the directory
MTD 4 Income Tax is one of only three products HMRC grades with all 16 tax-return items ready, and it costs £20 a year. If completeness per pound is what you are buying, this comparison is short and we lose it.
Estimate your self-employed tax in seconds
See what you would owe for the year, then file the real figures with TapTax in a couple of taps.
Total turnover before expenses
Under £1,000 we use the trading allowance automatically
Estimated tax bill
£6,872
15.3% effective rate for 2026/27
- Income tax
- £5,286
- Class 4 NI
- £1,586
Take-home pay
£32,128
after tax, NI and expenses
This is an estimate using HMRC-confirmed rates for 2026/27, not your official tax calculation. TapTax is MTD-compatible, so you can connect to HMRC and file the real figures in a couple of taps.
Some comparisons are close. This one is not, on the axis most buyers say they care about most.
Of the 127 products HMRC lists on its find-MTD-software service, three are graded ready on all 16 tax-return items. Two of them are Apple-platform products from the same family. The third is MTD 4 Income Tax, and our pricing research in August 2026 found it costs £20 a year.
That is the single most complete-per-pound entry on the whole directory, and there is no honest way to write around it. TapTax is at roughly six to eight of those 16 items today. If your question is "which software can finish my entire return for the least money", you can stop reading here, and the answer is not us.
What follows is the rest of the picture, because completeness per pound is not the only axis and the £20 explains itself once you look at what the product is doing.
- MTD 4 Income Tax is one of only three products on the entire directory graded ready on all 16 tax-return items, and the only cross-platform one of the three.
- It is £20 a year for an individual and £5 per client per year for agents, with the first month free and no permanent free tier, as checked in August 2026.
- HMRC also grades it ready on all three income sources, bridging, native record-keeping, agent software, HMRC Assist and calendar update periods. Nothing is left in development.
- Its own positioning, as researched in August 2026, is privacy-first and does not store your financial data, which is consistent with the price and rules out bank feeds and machine categorisation.
- TapTax is £0 on its free tier, ships native iOS and Android apps with open banking and AI categorisation, and is behind on return items at roughly six to eight of 16.
The three products that can finish the whole return
HMRC grades every listed product against 16 separate tax-return items, and that grid is the most useful thing on the directory because it is the part vendors cannot spin.
3of 127 (2%)have all 16 return items readyHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026| Product | Free | Digital records | Sole trader | UK property | Foreign property | Mobile app | Return items |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTD 4 Income Tax | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 16/16 |
| MTD Companion for macOS | Not included | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Not listed | 16/16 |
| MTD Companion for iPhone & iPad | Not included | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Apple iOS | 16/16 |
HMRC lists what each vendor declares. Feature flags, mobile-app support in particular, are vendor claims rather than verified facts, and listings change. Check with the vendor before you buy. Data: HMRC find-MTD-software service (tax.service.gov.uk), scraped 9 August 2026.
MTD Companion is a two-listing Apple family, so if you are not on macOS or iOS the practical set is one product. That is the position MTD 4 Income Tax occupies, and it holds it at a price most competitors charge per month.
MTD 4 Income Tax
£20/yr individuals, £5/client/yr agents(checked August 2026)
- Free version: no
- Android; Apple iOS: yes
- Sole trader income: yes
- UK property income: yes
- Foreign property income: yes
- Keeps digital records: yes
16/16 tax-return items ready.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site
No permanent free tier; the first month is free. HMRC lists both mobile platforms but records the software type as web browser, and our own August 2026 research found a responsive web product rather than native apps.
What £20 a year buys, and what it cannot buy
Put the price next to the rest of the market and the gap is not marginal. Our August 2026 pricing pass across the dedicated MTD field found the same legal outcome sold at £58.80, £75 plus VAT, £129.99, £144 and, at the top of the range, over £300 a year. We wrote the whole curve up in how much MTD software actually costs.
So what is different at £20?
The product's own positioning, as recorded in our August 2026 research, is privacy: it does not store your financial data. Take that claim at face value and a great deal follows mechanically. Open banking feeds require holding transaction data. Machine categorisation requires holding transaction data. Stored receipt images require holding images. A product that deliberately holds none of that cannot offer any of them, and it also does not need the infrastructure, the security programme or the ongoing cost that holding them creates.
That is a coherent design rather than a corner cut. It also means the £20 is not buying you less compliance. It is buying the same compliance with the data entry moved onto you.
- Tax-return items (MTD ITSA)
- The 16 categories HMRC grades separately on its software directory, covering everything outside your quarterly business updates: UK interest, employment (PAYE), UK dividends, state and private pension income, partnership income, foreign dividends and interest, pension contributions, Construction Industry Scheme, charitable giving, capital gains, student loan, marriage allowance, voluntary Class 2 NI and the High Income Child Benefit Charge. A product with none of these can file quarterly updates but cannot finish your return. Only three products on the directory are ready on all 16.
Pricing in detail, checked August 2026
| TapTax Free | TapTax Starter | TapTax Pro | MTD 4 Income Tax | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | £0 | £4.99/mo | £9.99/mo | £20/yr |
| Approx. annual cost | £0 | £49 | £99 | £20 |
| Free tier | Permanent | n/a | n/a | None; first month free |
| Agent pricing | n/a | n/a | n/a | £5 per client per year |
| Quarterly MTD updates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Return items ready | 6 to 8 of 16 (our estimate) | 6 to 8 of 16 (our estimate) | 6 to 8 of 16 (our estimate) | 16 of 16 (HMRC grade) |
| Sole trader income | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| UK property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Foreign property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Bridging from a spreadsheet | No, by design | No, by design | No, by design | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Agent software | No | No | No | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| HMRC Assist | No | No | No | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Calendar quarters | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Native mobile app | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | Vendor-declared; web |
| Open banking import | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not listed by HMRC |
| HMRC directory status | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Listed |
MTD 4 Income Tax pricing is from our own vendor research as checked in August 2026. Feature grades in its column are HMRC's, from the 9 August 2026 scrape. TapTax pricing is our own published pricing. The TapTax annual figures are its published annual-plan prices, £49 for Starter and £99 for Pro, rather than twelve times the monthly rate.
The comparison that matters on this table is £20 against £49, both annual prices, with the £20 product ahead on return items, bridging, agent access and HMRC Assist. The only column where TapTax is cheaper is the free tier, and a free tier is only cheaper if it covers what you need.
Completeness and automation are two different things to buy, and the market prices them separately. Work out which one your tax year actually costs you time on before you compare prices.
Where MTD 4 Income Tax genuinely wins
Price, completeness and breadth of grading, and it wins all three clearly.
It can complete every one of the 16 return items, which two other products on the entire directory can say. It is £20 a year. It offers bridging, so an established spreadsheet can stay where it is. It is graded ready on agent software at £5 per client per year, which is aggressive pricing for accountants with a book of small clients. It supports HMRC Assist and calendar update periods. It is listed with HMRC today, and TapTax is not.
If your return has pension income, capital gains, partnership income or the High Income Child Benefit Charge in it, this product can finish it now and TapTax cannot yet. That is the honest trade and £20 makes it an easy one.
Where TapTax fits better
The free tier, and the year-round work.
TapTax Free is £0 with no expiry and no per-business cap, so for someone whose tax life is a single trade or a single rental with nothing unusual in it, the cheapest complete answer costs nothing at all rather than £20. That is a narrow win, and it only holds while your return stays simple.
The wider difference is where the effort goes. A product that stores no financial data cannot import your bank transactions, which means every quarter you sit down and enter them. TapTax is built the opposite way round: open banking pulls transactions in as they happen, AI categorisation proposes the treatment, receipt capture works from the camera at the counter, and CSV import with presets for 16 UK banks covers accounts a feed does not reach. By the time the quarterly deadline arrives the update is a review rather than an evening's work.
For a landlord with one tenancy and twenty transactions a year, that automation is worth very little and £20 is the better buy. For a trades business with four hundred card payments a year, the arithmetic reverses quickly, and it reverses on your time rather than your money.
Work out roughly what you owe first with the sole trader tax calculator, which includes Class 4 NIC, and see the whole field in the MTD software directory.
Who should choose which
Wants the completest possible return for the least money. MTD 4 Income Tax. All 16 items at £20 a year is the best value on the directory and it is not close.
Has pensions, capital gains or partnership income on the return. MTD 4 Income Tax today. TapTax is at six to eight of 16 and those items are among the ones still closing.
An accountant with many small clients. MTD 4 Income Tax at £5 per client per year, with agent software graded ready. TapTax has no agent product.
Keeps records in a spreadsheet. MTD 4 Income Tax, which offers bridging. TapTax does not do bridging by design, though its CSV import will take a spreadsheet export.
Has a high transaction volume and no time for data entry. TapTax, for open banking and automatic categorisation. £29 a year of difference, £49 at Starter against £20, is a poor trade against several evenings of typing.
Wants to spend nothing at all. TapTax's free tier is £0 with no expiry, which beats £20. My Tax Digital and Self Assessment Direct are also free and further ahead on return items, so compare all three in our genuinely free MTD roundup.
Must file a live submission this week. MTD 4 Income Tax, or another listed product. TapTax's recognition is in progress and we will not tell you otherwise.
The bottom line
MTD 4 Income Tax is the strongest value proposition on HMRC's directory and the clearest evidence that MTD compliance does not have to be expensive. All 16 return items, all three income sources, bridging, agent access, HMRC Assist and calendar quarters, for £20 a year. Very few products at ten times the price grade as well.
TapTax competes on a different axis and we are not going to pretend the axes are the same. Our free tier costs nothing, our apps are shipped on both stores, and the bank feed and categorisation do the year's work so the quarterly update is a two-minute review. On return-item completeness we are behind, and TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process rather than listed today.
If you want the whole field rather than a head-to-head, our analysis of all 127 HMRC-listed MTD tools has the full picture.
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