People who use software to work out their UK tax bill are part of a proposed change that also reaches the people behind those systems. HM Revenue and Customs, the UK tax authority known as HMRC, wants clearer powers to examine how relevant digital tax information is produced.
Daylight Post found that the draft explicitly adds a system’s creators, developers and producers to the people who can be required to give inspectors reasonable help. Comparing it with the current law shows that the proposal concerns access to the workings behind information, as well as the information itself.
The changes are planned for Finance Bill 2026-27. The government says they would take effect when that bill receives Royal Assent, the formal step that makes an approved bill law. They are not a new power already in force.
The law already goes beyond paper receipts
The existing law is section 114 of the Finance Act 2008. It lets authorized officials inspect and check the operation of computers used in connection with documents they can legally require. It also lets them require reasonable assistance from users and people involved in operating the equipment.
That matters because a tax figure can be the end of a calculation done elsewhere. Seeing the number on a return may not explain which records or processing produced it.
The draft replaces wording about computers and associated equipment with broader wording about things that hold relevant information. It also adds the people who created, developed or produced them to the assistance provision. Software makers are therefore named explicitly, rather than left only within wording about users or operators.
What this means for AI conversations
The digital-information clause does not name artificial intelligence, ChatGPT or chatbots. Its scope turns on relevant tax information and an existing lawful right to require it. The text does not create a general right to search everyone’s conversations.
HMRC’s policy explanation says the aim includes understanding how tax figures were generated using software or automated processes. It identifies software providers and people managing cloud-based records as affected. Cloud services store or process information on computers reached over the internet.
The reason for asking still matters
Under Schedule 36, another part of the tax law, an information notice is a formal demand for information or documents reasonably needed to check a person’s tax position. The law also includes rules about who must approve notices to third parties and restrictions for legally privileged material, such as protected communications with a lawyer.
HMRC says section 114 would remain a supporting provision, operating where it already has a lawful basis to require information. Its impact note also says it would first seek voluntary cooperation when examining software. Collecting the correct tax is the stated purpose; understanding a calculation and justifying access to private information are both part of that task.
These proposals concern the tax authority. The Department for Work and Pensions, which administers benefits, is already testing bank checks for benefit payments. Those checks use different powers. A rule applying to one department does not give the other the same access.
