Income tax liability on small estates

I understand that the current position is that for the 2016/17 tax year, personal representatives dealing with estates in administration do not need to report income and pay tax where:
•the only source of income is savings interest; and
•the tax liability is below £100.
I have a number of very small estates where the only gross interest due is on monies being held by our firm and it would be administratively simpler to pay all the interest to the beneficiaries rather than account to HMRC who sometimes have no record of the deceased.
Would it be acceptable to pay the gross interest to the beneficiaries and advise them that they may need to account to HMRC depending upon their own tax position?

sharon edelstyn
Phoenix Legal Group

Provided that the conditions you mentioned are met for each Estate individually then you can and should do just that.
It’s a huge shame that nothing similar has been done about dividend income.
Maxine Higgins
Citroen Wells

Do you have a link to any official HMRC website which confirms this?

Elise Mason
GWCA

No it isn’t on the Gov website. Don’t know why. I found it on the CIOT website which says:

“… note that this GOV.UK page does not cover HMRC’s announcement that, for the 2016/17 tax year, personal representatives dealing with estates in administration do not need to report income and pay tax where:
the only source of income is savings interest; and
the tax liability is below £100…”

sharon edelstyn
Phoenix Legal Group