Right now, the most important thing for a trustee to do is make sure they have registered their trust with the Trust Registration Service before the deadline of 1 September 2022. If you are a trustee it is important that you ensure this takes place to avoid penalties and charges from HMRC as the responsibility for compliance has been placed on your shoulders!
This is not a straightforward task and many professionals are struggling with this exercise so please do not feel deflated. Sometimes the system does not work, sometime it crashes half way through registration, sometimes it just simply wants to be difficult! Sometimes you simply don't know whether the trust you manage is one that should be registered.
If your trust is one of the following you must register before 1 September 2022:-
trusts that were in existence before 6 October 2020 and do not generate income
trusts that were in existence before 6 October 2020 but have since been closed that did not generate income
trusts which were created after 6 April 2021 if they become liable for income tax
To make sure you are covered and take the right action it would be sensible to review any trusts of which you are a trustee and take some advice to make sure you do the right thing.
There will be many old dormant trusts which have not done anything for many years. They may own a property which an elderly relative lives in, may have a parcel of land or some other asset that generates no income. These trust will probably have to be registered too.
Trusts created by wills, after the will maker has died will more likely than not fall into the above categories. Trusts created during lifetimes will more likely that not fall into the above categories. Trusts contained in wills where the will maker is still alive do not need to be registered as they do not come into existence until the will maker has died.
Not that it will make it any easier but here is the link to the government website relating to trusts https://www.gov.uk/topic/personal-tax/trusts. Please use this link to see if the trust you are involved with needs to be registered.
You will need to gather information about the trustees, the person who established the trust, the beneficiaries and the assets within the trust. All of these details will need to be included with the Trust Registration Service.
To start the process of registering here is the link to the government website https://www.gov.uk/guidance/register-a-trust-as-a-trustee. Alternatively, you may just wish to call us for help on 01622 843729. Our trust team would love to help get the weight of this compliance headache off your shoulders!