REMOVAL of the ‘making tax digital’ aspects from Westminster's 2017 Finance Bill has been welcomed by NFU Scotland.

Union vice president Gary Mitchell said: “Following intense lobbying by NFUS and other UK farming unions, this is a common-sense move that will lift the immediate fear faced by many farming and crofting businesses of having to comply with complex online tax requirements at a time when access to the necessary digital infrastructure is still missing from much of rural Scotland.

“The government had proposed that making tax digital would bring business tax into the digital age, but for many of our members the digital age has yet to be delivered to them by the government," said Mr Mitchell.

“Removal of the rushed making tax digital requirements may only be temporary," he cautioned. "If these proposals for onerous quarterly tax returns re-emerge in the future, we will again make the case that, even if the digital infrastructure was in place, farmers and crofters would have considerable difficulty shoe-horning modern agricultural businesses into the accounting and tax reporting demands.”