Revenue and Customs: Telephone Services
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average waiting time was for callers to HM Revenue and Customs helplines dealing with bereavement and estates in each of the last two years.
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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