Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how long Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs takes to process inheritance tax account forms and return IHT421 forms as a receipt of tax paid; and whether there is a service-level agreement for this.

HMRC’s published target for processing the IHT400 account form (establishing tax liability) and, if appropriate, issuing the IHT421 to HM Courts and Tribunal Service is 80% within 15 days. In 2018/19 HMRC met this target, and they continue to do so. HMRC regularly monitor their cases so that the small number that fall outside this target are processed.

In light of the impact of Covid-19, HMRC are monitoring demand and resource across all workloads and there may be fluctuations in performance over the coming months.