Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure that people receive prompt responses from HMRC caseworkers on (a) inheritance tax payments and (b) other matters.

Since 6 April 2018, 95.65% of new Inheritance Tax accounts submitted to HMRC are processed within 15 working days. This enables the customer to obtain Grant of Representation.

In April 2018, HMRC changed its account handling process in response to customer feedback. Now, if a compliance check is required, HMRC will write to the customer and provide them with a timeline and a date indicating how long the check will take.

For the week ending 31 August 2018, HMRC responded to 66.38% of inheritance tax post within 15 working days. In order to bring performance in line with the target of responding to 80% of post within 15 working days, additional resource has been deployed.