Making Tax Digital: Everything You Need to Know

MTD or Making Tax Digital is an initiative of the British Government to digitalize tax filing and accounting for their people. The idea behind the innovation was to help individuals as well as businesses to streamline tax filing, on a single platform.

When Will It Come into Play?

Making Tax Digital is expected to come into practice on April 1, 2019. However, this deadline is only for businesses that have crossed the VAT threshold. Businesses beyond VAT will be included under MTD by April 2020.

Who Is Included Under MTD?

Making Tax Digital will include a wide group of people, ranging from individual taxpayers, landlords, self-employed individuals and all businesses, except a few. Although, by April 2019, it will only be mandatory for the VAT registered businesses with a turnover greater than £85,000.

Why Was the Change Initiated?

The HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) claims that every year billions of pounds are lost to errors and miscalculations during tax filing. To cap these losses, the HMRC proposed the idea of Making Tax Digital administer taxes in a simpler and effective manner, avoiding the possible errors.

In short, Making Taxes Digital has been employed to make tax filing:

Accurate
Making Tax Digital desires to shape the tax process in such a way that there remains little chance of miscalculations and errors. A tight control of fraudulent activities will also be practiced.

Simpler
The HMRC will introduce tax software that allows small businesses to quickly file their taxes online, with ease and efficiency.

Faster
With efficient software available online, the tax filing for business owners and accountants will be more automated and time efficient.

How is Will Making Tax Digital Benefit People?

Everything At One Place
Users with MTD will create a single financial account that will include every detail of their liabilities and claims, all at one place.

Digital Interaction
MTD has replaced the telephonic conversations with online chats and emails. Users will no longer have to wait on call for several minutes to get their queries answered.

Up-to-date Tax Information At Every Time of The Year
Making Tax Digital by HMRC will require its users to update their tax statements at least four times a year. Although it is not a mandate to do it every three months, the information will need to be available on their digital accounts so it can be viewed by HMRC when required. Thus, a comprehensive tax picture for both the user and the government.

Fewer Efforts, More Time At Hand
One digital account will hold every critical information, tax payments will be done on the same platform, documents and spreadsheets will stay on the same account, using a third party software.

With this, tax filing and record keeping will be less of an effort for the users, saving them more time to be used on more important areas.

Tax Planning Better Than Before
By maintaining records digitally, users will develop a habit of updating their taxes regularly. This gives the taxpayers a clearer picture of their tax situation. Using this information, they can manage their taxes better. Payments this way can be budgeted to make financial management easier and effective.

Are There Any Risks Associated With Making Tax Digital?

The only problem with MTD is that a large number of businesses are used to the traditional method of tax filing. These businesses may be apprehensive to make the transition from the current practice to the digital platform. Although it may be scary to use entirely new software knowing that the HMRC is involved in the process, the benefits out-number the risks.

The best thing to do is to prepare you for the upcoming changes to make the best of what the government has in mind.

Best Test Automation Tools to Look for in 2018

Software testing has come a long way with the introduction of automation and organizations across the globe are switching to automation to increase test coverage and reduce the time to market. As a result, test automation tools have emerged as the new “must haves” for every organization. The advancements in the field of software development have given rise to new challenges in testing and the new age test automation tools have introduced new and advanced features to cater to the changing requirements.

In other words, the devices have become smarter and this demands for the QA tools to be smart too. Here are 6 test automation tools to look for this year. Some of these tools are open source while the others are commercial, but what they all have in common are the features that you need “right now” to make software testing in your organization a success.

1] Test Complete

Type: Commercial

Test Complete is a functional automated testing platform developed by SmartBear Software. The tool is divided into 3 modules – desktop, web and mobile – and each module allows creation of automated tests specific to that module.

Key Features:

Can be used for mobile & desktop apps, Web UI and API
Supports Windows platform
Supports Python, JScript, Delphi, VBScript, C#, and C++ languages
Based on keyword-driven framework
Explore: https://smartbear.com/product/testcomplete/overview/

2] QARA Test

Type: Commercial

QARA Test stands for Quality Assurance with Rapid Automation and is a test automation tool developed by The Digital Group. The tool offers a complete test management solution as well as an add-on that is available on the Atlassian Marketplace.

Key Features:

Supports multi-browser and multi-platform testing
Generates graphically represented reports for in-depth reporting & analytics
Offers seamless integration with JIRA, SauceLabs & other popular tools
Based on keyword-driven framework.
Explore: http://www.qaratest.com/

3] Katalon Studio

Type: Open source

Katalon Studio is a free automated testing platform developed by Katalon LLC. The software comes with a specialized IDE interface for Web, mobile and API testing.

Key Features:

Supports Windows, Linux & OS X platforms.
Can be used for mobile apps, Web UI and API.
Supports Java Groovy language.
Offers built-in project templates and SDLC integrations.
Explore: https://www.katalon.com/

The Final Word:

Every test automation tool listed above is a testing powerhouse. However, each one is different and is intended to cater to a different requirement. While some of them offer integrations with all the popular tools out there to increase the scope of QA within the same platform, others offer support for multiple languages and/or browsers and platforms. Therefore, it is recommended that you analyze your testing goals before you choose one.

Better Sensual Activity Through Sensory Control

No matter how good a man’s love life may be, he’s always up for better sensual activity; when it comes to sensual satisfaction, the sky’s the limit! There are numerous romantic tips a couple can use, but one area that they may want to consider exploring is that of sensory control. Unlike some exploratory sensual practices, such as BDM, a man doesn’t need to worry about how this might affect his male organ health; it’s more a matter of isolating sensory experiences during sensual contact.

Going beyond touch
Because sensual activity is so often focused on physical sensation and stimulation, the sense that is most often associated with the activity is that of touch. While there’s no denying that touch plays a vital role in sensual activity, spending some time focusing on the other senses can add a new level to the experience.

One interesting way to incorporate sensory control into one’s romantic activities is to isolate and then “eliminate” one of the senses. With one of the senses temporarily “deadened,” the other senses may become more heightened. The novelty of engaging in sensual activity with one of the senses controlled can transform the experience.

Here are a few tips for achieving this form of sensory control.

• Use a blindfold. Although there are other ways of de-emphasizing sight, such as closing one’s eyes, turning off all the lights or using a sleep mask, a blindfold may be more fun for many couples. Its use carries with it a kind of sensual thrill.

• Incorporate earplugs. Some couples explore sensual activity without sound by seeing what it’s like if neither partner can talk, sigh, moan, grunt, etc., and there is validity to this approach; however, there still will be environmental sounds, such as bedsprings squeaking or a dog barking. Using earplugs may not block out 100% of the sound, but it can help.

• Avoid lip or tongue contact. While one wouldn’t want to banish kissing permanently from one’s coupling, it’s interesting to occasionally engage in sensual activity with no “tasting” of the other partner’s lips, skin, tongue, privates, etc.

Alternatively, rather than banishing senses, it can be beneficial to concentrate on heightening one of them. There are many ways in which this can be accomplished, and partners shouldn’t be afraid to let their imaginations roam free when coming up with new things to try.

To help get started, here are a few options one might consider:

• Lighting makes a difference. Shake things up by altering one’s usual lighting patterns in bed. If a couple most often gets intimate in dim light, try keeping all of the lights on. Alternatively, those who copulate in bright light can explore how candlelit coupling makes them feel. Buying some red light bulbs to stick into the lamps during sensual engagement can definitely alter the experience. A black light or strobe light experience can be especially interesting – although many are too sensitive to the strobe light for this to be an option.

• Get scented. Incorporate incense, patchouli, aromatic candles, etc. into one’s experience. Although certain scents, such as vanilla, are said to be aphrodisiacal, each person is unique; partners should find out what special scents work best for them.

• Try new sounds. Many couples have special mood music, but sometimes natural sounds – recordings of gentle rain, a waterfall, soft breezes blowing through trees – can add a new level of sensuality. One can also go in the opposite direction and try out recordings that capture the romantic sounds of other couples.

• Get a taste for it. Letting one’s partner lick sugar, spice or another favorite flavor off of one’s body can be highly satisfying for both partners.

Sensory control and exploration is one route to better sensual activity. It is also a good idea for men to regularly use a top-drawer male organ health crème (health professionals recommend Man1 Man Oil). Unwanted manhood odor is definitely in need of sensory control, so a crème with vitamin A, which fights odor-causing bacteria, can help. Dry, flaky skin can also be a sensory turn-off, so applying a crème with moisturizers like Shea butter and vitamin E will keep the tool hydrated and healthy.

Visit http://www.menshealthfirst.com for additional information on most common manhood health issues, tips on improving member sensitivity and what to do to maintain a healthy male organ. John Dugan is a professional writer who specializes in men’s health issues and is an ongoing contributing writer to numerous websites.