Understanding the inheritance tax accounts system

Those who deal regularly with self-assessment returns and only occasionally with submitting inheritance tax accounts might easily assume that the self-assessment administrative system of returns enquiries information notices assessments limitation periods and appeals also applies in essence to this tax. It does not; inheritance tax has had its own administrative system separate from the system that applies to the other major direct taxes since it was introduced as capital transfer tax in 1974.

It is a system with significant differences from the self-assessment system and one that in many respects is weighted more heavily against the taxpayer and in favour of HMRC. Instead of returns it has accounts. It has no statute-based system of investigation equivalent to the enquiry provisions of self-assessment and it has no real...