They are two separate regimes that happen to share a name, and confusing them causes a lot of unnecessary worry. MTD for VAT covers how you keep VAT records and submit VAT returns; it has applied to all VAT-registered businesses since April 2022 and has no income threshold. MTD for Income Tax covers your self-employment and property income, starts in April 2026 for qualifying income above £50,000, and introduces quarterly updates and a final declaration. You can easily be in one and not the other: a VAT-registered business with £45,000 of income is in MTD for VAT now but not in MTD for Income Tax until April 2027. Being already set up for VAT does make the Income Tax transition considerably easier, because the records and software are largely there.