As a tax advisor, one of my great frustrations is the number of occasions when it appears that forms are completed just for the sake of it.
There are several areas of tax where this seems to happen and one such area is inheritance tax.
Therefore, I was pleased to see in the recent budget the chancellor announcing that with effect from 1 January 2022, because of the improvements that are being made to inheritance tax administration system, some non-tax paying estates will no longer have to complete inheritance tax forms.
It has been suggested that over 90% of estates where no inheritance tax is payable will benefit from this change. As yet we await full details of the measure announced.
I can only hope that this is a sign of things to come and that a further review is undertaken along similar lines for trusts. There are several situations on the happening of certain events within trusts where inheritance tax forms are required even if there is no inheritance tax at stake. In these situations it seems to be a form filling exercise just for the sake of it.
Alongside this it is also pleasing to see that the changes made as a result of COVID which meant that physical signatures were not required on inheritance tax forms will be made permanent. This will ease the administrative burden of getting signatures from executors that may be in various locations around the country.