Inheritance tax form IHT400

ApolloHubble

I appreciate I am asking lots of questions on this Forum about Probate etc, and really appreciate any advice.
My mother's assets are less than £500,000 and are left to me and my sister. When I open the IHT400 form to fill it in, it has a box that comes up with 'do you need to pay IHT? If not, then close this form'. I know the advice on this site states I fill out the IHT400 and Claim for Resident Nil Rate form. Can I just check I do need to do both forms after applying for the IHT422 (so many forms!). I've also created a Probate account online and started that. It seems there is  a lot of bureaucracy before you can actually do anything.

Keep_pedalling

What was the marital status of your mother? If she was a widow and had inherited her husband’s estate then you can use his transferable NRB instead of her RNRB which has the advantage of you not needing to do a IHT return.

ApolloHubble

Keep_pedalling said:

What was the marital status of your mother? If she was a widow and had inherited her husband’s estate then you can use his transferable NRB instead of her RNRB which has the advantage of you not needing to do a IHT return.

she was divorced so all her assets were hers. she bought her house after my dad and her split up over 20 years ago

Keep_pedalling

In which case you definitely have to have to file a full IHT return. I have just opened the IHT400 and don’t see any such message.

With no IHT to pay you do not need to fill in IHT422. You need to complete IHT400, IHT435 to claim the RNRB, IHT 405 for her home, IHT406 for bank accounts and savings, IHT407 household and personal goods and possible several others depending on what assets she held.

SadCodeMan

I wonder if you might possibly have misread the pdf popup?

When I open it I get:

-----
Before completing this form, have you checked you need to? You can do this by using the Inheritance Tax Checker Tool. https://www.gov.uk/valuing-estate-of-someone-who-died/estimate-estate-value#use-the-online-inheritance-tax-checker If there is any Inheritance Tax to pay, you should obtain the correct reference number by applying online at www.gov.uk/paying-inheritance-tax you do not need to apply for a reference number if there is no Inheritance Tax to pay.
------

There are two different bits there. 
1) There are a (relatively limited) number of cases where you do not need to fill in the IHT400 and that is described at the link.
2) If you don't need to pay IHT then you may still need to fill in the IHT400 (after readiing the above) but you don't need to apply for a reference number first (which you would otherwise need in order to make payments).

I.e. there are quite a number of cases where you don't need to pay IHT but still need to fill in the form. You just don't need to apply for the additional reference number first.

ApolloHubble

Keep_pedalling said:

In which case you definitely have to have to file a full IHT return. I have just opened the IHT400 and don’t see any such message.

With no IHT to pay you do not need to fill in IHT422. You need to complete IHT400, IHT435 to claim the RNRB, IHT 405 for her home, IHT406 for bank accounts and savings, IHT407 household and personal goods and possible several others depending on what assets she held.

thanks, I managed to get all of those forms except 405 so now downloaded that. Also have a work pension form 409. Not sure how to fill that one out as even though I have spoken to the Pension company, they want the original death cert before they can tell me what is owing or not. Do I have to wait until that happens? I don't believe anything was left to us from the pension. It seems as though I cannot do one thing until I've done something else, and then I cannot do that until I have done other things beforehand. That is what is so confusing

Gsaver1

Keep_pedalling said:

What was the marital status of your mother? If she was a widow and had inherited her husband’s estate then you can use his transferable NRB instead of her RNRB which has the advantage of you not needing to do a IHT return.

How long has the transferable NRB been in place? What was the allowance before that if any? 

Keep_pedalling

Gsaver1 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

What was the marital status of your mother? If she was a widow and had inherited her husband’s estate then you can use his transferable NRB instead of her RNRB which has the advantage of you not needing to do a IHT return.

How long has the transferable NRB been in place? What was the allowance before that if any? 

October 2007. Prior to that if it was not used up it was lost.