IHT400 Notes : Guide to completing your Inheritance Tax account

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This guide will help you fill in form IHT400
and also includes help for the schedules we
sent you, some of which you may need to fill in
What is in this guide?
What we have sent you
Website: www.hmrc.gov.uk/
inheritancetax
Helpline: 0845 30 20 900
When you may not need
to fill in form IHT400
Introduction
As well as form IHT400, you may need to fill in some of the schedules that
go with it. The notes in this guide follow the box numbers in form IHT400.
Notes to help you fill in the schedules are also included in this guide.
In this guide and in form IHT400 we refer to the person who has died as
‘the deceased'.
We hope this guide will answer most of your questions. If you need
more help:
• go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/inheritancetax or
• phone our Probate and Inheritance Tax (IHT) Helpline on 0845 30 20 900.
These notes apply where a person died on or after 18 March 1986.
If a person died before this date, please phone our helpline.
If you are applying for a grant without the help of a solicitor or
other agent, you should have received form IHT400, this guide and
some of the schedules that we think apply to most estates (see page 4 for
information about grants). But it is your responsibility to make sure you fill
in the correct schedules. You do not need to fill in any that do not apply,
even if we have included them with the pack.
If you need any of the other schedules, download them from our website
or phone the Probate and Inheritance Tax Helpline.
Excepted estates
An excepted estate is an estate where no Inheritance Tax (IHT) is due and
a full Inheritance Tax account on form IHT400 is not needed.
If the estate is an excepted estate, use form IHT205 or IHT207 Return of
estate information instead or in Scotland, form C5 or C5(OUK). If you know
that Inheritance Tax is due, you do not need to read pages 2 and 3 of this
guide. There are three types of excepted estate:
• low value estates
• exempt estates
• foreign domiciliaries.
The rules that apply to deaths on or after 1 September 2006 start on
page 2.
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