{"id":51797,"date":"2025-08-08T02:04:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T02:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51797\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T02:04:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T02:04:18","slug":"hmrc-investigations-manage-to-catch-out-1200-families-in-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51797\/","title":{"rendered":"HMRC investigations manage to ‘catch out’ 1,200 families in crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

HMRC has substantial investigation powers if it suspects inheritance tax has been underpaid through error, omission or by undervaluing assets.\"HMRCHMRC investigations manage to ‘catch out’ 1,200 families in crackdown<\/p>\n

Inheritance tax investigations have managed to catch out 1200 more families in a HMRC crackdown. HMRC has substantial investigation powers <\/a>if it suspects inheritance tax has been underpaid through error, omission or by undervaluing assets.<\/p>\n

The number of official probes into families\u2019 financial affairs has jumped in the 2024\/25 tax year to 3,961. This is up from just 2,807 in the previous year \u2013 a 41 per cent increase.<\/p>\n

Sean McCann, chartered financial planner at NFU Mutual, <\/a>which obtained the data through a Freedom of Information request, said: \u201cWhere there is a suspicion inheritance tax has been underpaid, HMRC has substantial investigatory powers and will check a range of sources to build a picture of the deceased individual\u2019s financial affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE Major UK airport faces \u2018shutdown\u2019 and could be forced to ground all flights<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHMRC leaves no stone unturned in these investigations. For example, they will look at outgoings such as gifts made in the seven years before death, or premiums for life insurance policies which if not written in trust will form part of the taxable estate,\u201d McCann said.<\/p>\n

“If you\u2019re taking advantage of the \u2018gifts from normal expenditure\u2019 exemption, recording your gifts, income and expenditure on the last page of the HMRC IHT403 form available on HMRC\u2019s website allows you to record these during your lifetime Schedule IHT403,\u201d said McCann.<\/p>\n

“Getting it right first time reduces the chances of any potential penalties or interest payments.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

McCann told Money Week:<\/a> \u2018\u2019With pensions added into the taxable estate from April 2027, we will see many families lose part or all the residence nil rate band that allows them to pass a share of their home tax free to \u2018direct descendants\u2019 as it is eroded by \u00a31 for every \u00a32 over \u00a32m.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2019For many, it won\u2019t just be inheritance tax on their pension funds they need to be concerned about \u2013 by breaching the \u00a32m threshold they may lose or some or all of their tax-free residence nil rate band, pushing up their overall tax bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

HMRC said: \u201cThe majority of people pay the correct amount of IHT. Investigations are opened into cases where compliance issues have been detected to ensure that everyone pays the right amount of tax.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HMRC has substantial investigation powers if it suspects inheritance tax has been underpaid through error, omission or by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,20919,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-51797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-hmrc","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}