OTS scopes IHT review

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has published the scoping document for its review of IHT, following the announcement of the review in January.

A call for evidence will be held early in 2018 and the OTS will publish its report in the autumn of 2018. The review will consider issues including:

• the process around submitting IHT returns and paying tax, including cases where it is clear from the outset that there will be no tax to pay;
• the various gifts rules, including the annual threshold, small gifts and normal expenditure out of income, and their interaction with the wider IHT framework;
• administrative and practical issues around routine estate planning, compliance and disclosure and aspects of probate procedure;
• complexities arising from the reliefs and their interaction with the wider tax framework;
• the scale and impact of any distortions to taxpayers’ decisions, investments, asset prices or the timing of transactions because of the IHT rules, relevant aspects of the taxation of trusts, or interactions with other taxes such as CGT; and
• perceptions of IHT complexity among taxpayers, practitioners and industry bodies.

See http://bit.ly/2Gf3eJB.