HM Revenue and Customs recognises that many of its customers, particularly businesses and agents, choose to use commercially available tax software. The department plans to work more closely with software developers by releasing a strategy for improved application programming interfaces (APIs).

The new approach will allow developers to do much more, benefiting customers by helping them to get their tax tasks right first time.

The API approach will see HMRC promoting a ‘third-party software first’ approach for businesses and agents by building richer APIs that enable third party tax products to work better with HMRC systems.

By giving greater access to APIs and sharing rules and logic it is hoped a more seamless approach to business taxation will emerge.

A government spokesperson said they wanted to make tax “easier to understand and simpler to engage with”. Mark Dearnley, HMRC’s Chief Digital and Information Officer, said:

Our vision is to provide software developers with better and richer APIs that will enable them to innovate and bring more sophisticated software products to the market.