Help Centre · MTD ITSA · 1 min read

Your businesses

How Tax Optimiser retrieves your income sources from HMRC, the three business types, and what each business holds.

Tax Optimiser Updated 25 Jun 2026

MTD ITSA reports each source of income separately, and HMRC already knows which ones you have. Once connected, Tax Optimiser pulls them in for you with Retrieve businesses from HMRC — no typing required. They then appear on your dashboard.

The dashboard business list showing a UK Property business and a Self Employment business

The three types of business

  • Self-employment — a sole trade, such as a plumber or a consultant. Each separate trade is its own business.
  • UK property — income from letting property in the UK. All your UK rentals are reported together as one property business.
  • Foreign property — income from letting property overseas.

Opening a business

Select a business to see its details — its type, accounting basis, address and quarterly obligations.

A UK Property business detail page showing trading name, type, accounting type and address

Each business carries its own set of quarterly obligations — the four updates a year you owe HMRC for that source — and you report each one independently.

Keeping it up to date

If you start a new trade or buy a rental, tell HMRC and then use Refresh from HMRC to bring the change into Tax Optimiser. The businesses you see here always mirror what HMRC holds.

Next: Business settings.

The short version

Your businesses — in brief

Once connected, Retrieve businesses pulls your income sources straight from HMRC, so you never type them in.

Businesses come in three types - self-employment, UK property and foreign property - and each is reported separately with its own quarterly obligations.

Use Refresh from HMRC to bring in any new trade or rental after you have told HMRC about it.