HMRC issued a consultation document inviting comments on how the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) regime may be extended to Inheritance Tax (IHT) as it applies to trusts, and provides draft regulations to enable same.

The con-doc specifically invites comments on:

• The description of the schemes that would have to be notified
• The administrative arrangements for providing that notification

The Government is planning, subject to the outcome of the consultation, to introduce regulations later in 2010/11. The draft regulations are in two parts. The IHT Description Regulations provide the ‘proposed description’ of arrangements that would have to be notified. The IHT Information Regulations set out how and when scheme promoters and users would have to provide prescribed information.

HMRC stated that the purpose of the new legislation is to enable them to learn about schemes that are new and innovative, not schemes of which they are already aware. In order to restrict disclosures to such schemes, the draft amending regulations currently contain a ‘grandfathering’ rule that would exempt from disclosure any scheme of the same, or substantially the same, description as a scheme that was first made available for implementation before a given date (which has yet to be determined).

The closing date for responses to this document is 20 October. The document is available at http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_ConsultationDocuments&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_PROD1_030624 is 20 October 2010.