Trust Registration Service: A reminder

In place since 2017, the Trust Registration Service (TRS) requires any trust which has a tax liability to be registered with HMRC.

When the system was first introduced, trustees were only required to initially register trusts. However, HMRC updated their reporting process in September 2020, and now require that trusts with a tax liability in the year ended 5 April 2020 must submit an annual update to the Trust Registration Service, not only providing details of any changes to the details reported for the trustees, beneficiaries, settlor and, if relevant, protector, but also confirming if relevant, that the details remain correct.

The deadline for this first submission is 31 January 2021.

The deadline for updating the register mirrors the Tax Return online submission deadline of 31 January each year, e.g. the details of changes to the trust in 2020/21 should be reported using the online register by 31 January 2022.

If the trust register update is not submitted by the deadline HMRC will charge penalties starting at £100 and rising to the greater of £300 or 5% of the total of all taxes payable in the year.

In order to update the register, the trustees will need to create an account with HMRC Online Services, and then ‘claim the trust’ by answering several questions about the trust based on the information held by HMRC. Once the trust has been ‘claimed’ the trustees can either complete the registration themselves, or you can register an agent to deal with matters on their behalf.

We have produced a guide to the process of creating an account with HMRC, which should hopefully assist you in completing the process.

If you would like us to act on your behalf in the matter, our fees for submitting a trust registration will depend on the information to be submitted. For example, where there are no changes to report, our fee will be £200 plus VAT. Where changes need to be reported our fee will be up to £500 plus VAT depending on the nature of the changes.

How can we help?

If you require assistance with the Trust Registration Service and wish to discuss the information to be reported, please contact Debbie Dolega (Partner, Tax).