TRS - 40 Beneficiaries

Trusts Discussion
1

I’m advising a trustee of a bare trust with 40 named beneficiaries so they can register and maintain themselves. The TRS manual now seems pretty clear that info should be provided on all of them (which should be relatively easy as it is non-taxable so minimal info required).

However, I’m not sure if it’s possible to register 40 beneficiaries on the portal and don’t fancy setting up a test case to check. Does anybody know if this is possible and, further, can anybody explain the contradiction in these two paragraphs here:

"Beneficiaries

You should give the details of all known beneficiaries who can benefit from the trust. If you have more than 25 beneficiaries in any one beneficiary type, keep a note of additional beneficiaries for your own records.

Named beneficiaries

You must give details of all individuals, trusts, charities and organisations named as beneficiaries in the deed."

Is the system limited to 25 beneficiaries and are they happy to not be told about the rest?
Thanks
Andrew

2

I have never reached more than 25 beneficiaries per trust so far, so this is a good question.

Personally, (once the TRS is submitted, and there is a way to immediately view the URN rather than wait for 15 days in the post), I would write a short letter to HMRC trusts giving them the URN and the rest of the beneficiaries. This way they have a record of all the beneficiaries.

Sameera Nathoo
Best Tax Services Ltd

3

Thanks. We’ve done that with assets. It gets tricky with beneficiaries who may change - if one is added but won’t fit on the system do we have to keep writing to them (and where do the letters go?).

In truth, I just don’t fancy an hour on hold to find out…

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