211,000 trusts registered with HMRC as 1st September deadline looms

A Freedom of Information request to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has revealed that 211,381 Trust registrations have been received since the Trustee Registration Service began in June 2017.

This is an increase of 61,692 in the first six months of 2022, with over 36,000 received in May and June alone – almost double the total number received in 2021.

All express trusts, except those registered as exempt as part of a narrow group of exclusions, must be registered onto the system by 1^st September under the EU’s Fourth and Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directives, with the onus on trustees to register through HMRC’s online portal by that date.

The new system for trust data requests is also set to launch on 1^st September. As well as this, the time limit for trustees to inform HMRC of changes to any information within the register has been set at 90 days.

In terms of disclosure, the 5AMLD requires the reister to available in principle for public scrutiny, though the UK is set to have a strict regime of examinations before requests are accepted. Specific conditions for disclosure were reported in July by Today’s Wills and Probate.

Several important changes were also made to the manual earlier in August.

Stacey Love, tax and estate planning specialist at Canada Life, commented on the number of trusts being registered with the deadline becoming ever-closer, noting that it is “imperative” that practitioners work with clients on this to help them through the change of regulations:

“It’s great to see that the message to register is starting to get through to Trustees. However, the clock is ticking and we still have a long way to go to ensure all the trusts that are required to register do so by the deadline.

Using a trust has been such a fundamental part of the tax and estate planning landscape for so long it’s entirely possible the existence of a trust may have faded into the background. As a result, many ‘ordinary’ people who are trustees may not realise that TRS registration still applies, unless they pay close attention to the financial press or receive regulatory updates from HMRC. With no central HMRC communication it’s imperative that providers and advisers work together to flag up these new rules with all of their trustee clients affected by the regulations.

With around 1 million trusts needing to be registered there is still a significant amount of work to complete and the onus is on advisers and providers to highlight the process to trustees.”

Number of Trusts registered by month. Source: Canada Life FOI to HMRC, July 2022