On 1 January 2022 the Inheritance Tax (Delivery of Accounts)(Excepted Estates)(Amendment) Regulations 2020 come into force.
This regulation confirms that administrators for a person domiciled in the UK with an excepted estate, who dies on or after 1 January 2022, no longer needs to complete the IHT 205 or IHT 217 (where applicable).
However, the process to understanding whether an IHT 205 form would have been appropriate or where the longer IHT 400 form should be completed instead, still requires an applicant to understand and answer the questions set out in what was the IHT 205.
In short, we wonder whether withdrawing this form from circulation will assist persons making an application without the assistance of a solicitor.
Not least because the applicant will still have to state the net value and the gross value of the estate for probate purposes and understand which exemptions will apply to the figures – something that completion of the IHT 205 and IHT 217 helped to do.