Yes, Probate Plus can help you fill the IHT205 or IHT400 forms. If you have a forms "system" such as Adobe Acrobat Std/Pro, Oyez Legal Forms, or Laserforms then Probate Plus can integrate and automate some of the form filling. If you're manually filling the forms you can also get Probate Plus to run various reports that give you figures to enter into the forms.
Fully automated? No - the forms are complex and contain many one-off entries that have information that is only entered once and directly into the form, not Probate Plus. The filling process is therefore interactive but the bottom line is that you build up the picture of the estate in Probate Plus, categorising people, assets and liabilities and then instruct Probate Plus to connect to your preferred form system and fill in what it can. You then review the form as you would normally do as part of the filling process.
Which form systems can I use?
- "PDF" forms direct from HMRC by using Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional (v7.x or higher) - but, not the free "Acrobat Reader" which does not support automated filling of forms.
- Oyez Legal Forms.
- IRIS Laserforms (now Advanced Legal).
- Manual filling (either on-screen or paper based).
Making sure the estate in Probate Plus is ready for form filling...
- In order for the form to be filled at all a Probate Plus "mapping" file must be present for the form. Check you have downloaded and installed the latest form mapping pack (from the Law Systems website downloads section) if you see messages regarding the mapping file being missing.
- Assets entered in Probate Plus must have a their IHT "tax-category" chosen as this is used to group assets together and place them into the relevant fields in the forms. You need to make sure that each asset you've entered in the Probate Plus matter has a "tax-category" that matches the relevant category in the IHT form. E.g. A bank a/c could have a "category" of "Bank accounts", but must have a "tax-category" of "IHT Bank and building society accounts". You will see a group of tax categories all starting with "IHT" for this purpose. If the tax-category of the asset does not have an "IHT" category, the field in the IHT will not be correctly filled. You can use the "Without tax-category" page tab at the bottom of the asset browser to check which assets do not have a tax-category.
- Ensure liabilities at death are entered and that funeral expenses are marked as such when their details are recorded. When adding a liability you will see a check box "IHT funeral expense" this will ensure the liability is placed into the correct part of the IHT form.
- After Probate Plus has sent information to the IHT form, you may need to switch to the form itself and click the "FORM" re-calculation button (or manually edit a field in the form). This will ensure that the form correctly calculates and refreshes the form fields.
PDF forms using Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional.
- Ensure the PDF form is open inside Adobe Acrobat and visible on screen.
- Switch to Probate Plus then click menu "Forms..Fill in the active PDF form".
- Probate Plus will attempt to connect to the visible form and if a valid form mapping file is available, will begin to fill various fields in the form.
Oyez Legal Forms.
- Generate a new Oyez Legal Form from within Probate Plus by clicking menu "Forms..Create a new Oyez Legal Form".
- Once the form is open on screen, switch back to Probate Plus and click menu "Forms..Fill in current Oyez form".
- Probate Plus will attempt to connect to the visible form and if a valid form mapping file is available, will begin to fill various fields in the form.
IRIS Laserform (now Advanced Legal).
- Open the form as normal from your Laserform browser.
- Switch to Probate Plus and click menu "Forms..Fill in current IRIS Laserform form".
- Probate Plus will attempt to connect to the visible form and if a valid form mapping file is available, will begin to fill various fields in the form. See here if you would like to use the 'Build a form bundle' feature.
Running useful supporting reports.
A variety of reports are available in Probate Plus to assist in generating the figures for form filling.
Reports..Assets..Assets report initial position (specific tax categories)
Reports..Assets..Non-asset item entries (eg gifts during lifetime)
Reports..Expenses..Liabilities