With legislation introduced in 2022, all express trusts now have to be registered on the Trust Registration Service by the 1st of September 2022, or 90-days from the date the trust was created ...
HMRC has said that there will be no penalties for a first offence such as late registration unless the failure is shown to be deliberate, in which case, you could be looking at a £5,000 penalty per offence, although this will vary on a case by case basis.
Trustees who have a TRS registered trust also have a duty to keep the details accurate and up to date. Any changes must be notified within 90-days and the details must include the beneficial owners and whether any UK tax liability has arisen from purchases or sales of land or property.
It should be noted that the TRS is the only route for trustees to get a Unique Taxpayer Reference so self-assessment SA900 tax returns can be submitted to HMRC.
HMRC received information from multiple sources. All trustees should be aware that HMRC has a complex web of data sources and get information from many different sources within the financial sector.
And finally, from the 1st of September 2022, any obliged entity, such as a bank or professional advisor is not able to establish new business relationships with trustees, unless their trust has been registered with the Trust Registration Service.
Existing business relationships will probably come under scrutiny too.
If you'd like to find out more about anything I've written here, do call me on 01908 774323 or leave a comment below and let's see how I can help you.