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My parents have 6 "loan trusts", taken out about 15years ago. They've just (last month) received a letter from one of them saying that it has to be "registered" with the HMRC by the start of September. Dad's asked me to help out as he struggles with the computer. I've got a couple of questions, as never even heard of loan trusts till this week...
1. Should we be having to do this? I think they probably do need to be registered, but would it be reasonable to expect the IFA, who set the trusts up, to do it?
2. There are 6 trusts, are we going to end up with 6 new Organisation Gov Gateway ID's, or will one ID be enough to deal with all the trusts?
3. These have never been set up with online accounts with the respective trust companies. Would doing that before registering them, make registering them any easier? I guess I'm hoping for a "register with hmrc" button!
Any pointers would be welcome, head is swimming with new terms already!
We have a family one and to answer question 1. Yes you do have to do it. It is allegedly going to help catch dodgy tax avoidance. Allegedly is probably the important word!
Question 3 ours is an all paper one too and just filled the forms in rather than trying to faff around with anything more complicated
Was on holiday with my brother in law last week (am IFA) and he was talking about this. Apparently "you" have to do them, the IFA isn't actually allowed to. He has client ring him whilst away who was struggling with the system and he had to be very careful about what he could and couldn't do to help
@UrbanHiker your parents aren’t the only ones just hearing about this. I’m a trustee for nieces and nephews accounts set up by my late parents, and my IFA only told me about the deadline last month.
The trustees are responsible for doing this and need to chose a lead trustee to fill the form in. Unfortunately you will need six separate government ID log ins, as you can only have one trust per log in. When you set up the ID make sure you choose “Organisation” login as you can’t register a trust under an “Individual” account.
IFA can’t do any of it, as they have to be seen as independent. An accountant can do it for you or the solicitor that set up the trust.
It’s actually a pretty easy process if you have your paperwork to hand and everyone’s details. I did nine in about an hour. Longest part for me was digging out the old paperwork from mum’s estate documents. Still would have had to do this if I’d got someone else to do the registration. Do one account at a time, print off the registration details at the end and write the login ID on the papers as you go.
No need to register online with any of the companies involved as they won’t have the magic button you’re looking for.
Depending on the age of your parents, it’s probably good to get familiar with their investments as generally they won’t be the ones sorting it all out in the future. Guess how I found this out. Oh, now’s also a good time to make sure they both have a will.
Thanks All.
I did a longer trawl through the documentation last night. Thankfully worked out that in fact there are only two trusts (one Mum's, one Dad's), each trust contains 3 bonds. So less work than I was led to believe.
Agree re understanding their finances, wills etc. Originally, I suggested to them that they get eldest son (I'm 3rd) to look over these things, but somehow I've ended up with the dubious honour!
Seeing them tonight, to see if we can't get at least some of the registration under way...
I'm not in the Trusts corner of the taxiverse but I spotted this being flagged internally earlier this week, so obviously a push on it.
Agree re understanding their finances, wills etc.
Look into Power of Attorney if you've not already sorted it out. We've just got the financial one set up, just need to get my parents to check with the banks etc what they need fromne as proof of ID.
Well, made some progress. Typical with Gov interactions, far from a good experience though.
Somehow managed to cock up one of the registrations. Must have clicked on the wrong box at the very beginning and from then on got in a whole mess, as obviously trying to register the wrong type of product. Then couldn't work out how to go back and fix the issue. In fact I think I found the work around, you just let the wrong entries wither and die, and eventually (28 days later!) the gov deletes the partially set up account.
Very much not a nice experience. Though now I know the right boxes to check, the second registration was pretty seamless.
Progress at least. Ta for all the help.