Inheritance Tax Act 1984 section 216

Delivery of accounts

Section 216 sets out who is required to deliver inheritance tax accounts to HMRC, what property must be included in those accounts, and the time limits for delivering them.

• Personal representatives, transferors, trustees and transferees may all be required to deliver an IHT account specifying the relevant property and its value
• If no grant of representation is obtained within 12 months of the death, beneficiaries and others who receive property or benefit from it become accountable instead
• Where personal representatives cannot ascertain the exact value of property after making reasonable enquiries, they may submit a provisional estimate with an undertaking to deliver a corrective account later
• Time limits for delivering accounts vary by category — typically 12 months from the end of the month of death for personal representatives, and 6 months from the end of the month of the chargeable event for certain trust and conditional exemption charges