Inheritance Tax
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average time taken by HM Revenue and Customs is to issue a clearance certificate in respect of a deceased person's estate after tax due has been paid; and what steps her Department is taking to reduce that time.
Answered by Treasury
Most unused pension funds and pension death benefits will be brought into the value of a person’s estate for Inheritance Tax (IHT) purposes from 6 April 2027. Most estates will continue to have no IHT liability, even after these changes have come into effect. HMRC has published a Tax Information and Impact Note on these changes, which includes details of the expected operational impact on HMRC. This is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inheritance-tax-unused-pension-funds-and-death-benefits/inheritance-tax-unused-pension-funds-and-death-benefits HMRC’s service standard is to process 80% of applications for clearance for IHT within 15 working days. In the first quarter of 2026/27, HMRC processed 93% of clearance applications using Form IHT30 within 15 working days. On 17 June 2025, HMRC introduced a new Bereavement Helpline to provide a central service to support customers dealing with the tax affairs of someone who has died. The average speed of answer for the Bereavement Helpline in 2025/26 (between 17 June 2025 to March 2026) was 7 minutes 58 seconds. From April to June 2026, the average speed of answer was 5 minutes 4 seconds.
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