IHTM29105 - Enquiry Reporting System (ERS): Opening a new ERS record

If you work in PC&S you should open an ERS record when yield amendments first arise. The record should remain open until all your queries about the amendments are finalised. You will only use ERS to record yield and can ignore the parts of the system that relate to working enquiry cases.

If you work in Compliance you will open an ERS record the start of your enquiry. It will remain open until your enquiry is complete.

Setting the baseline figure

ERS works out the amount of yield collected on a case by comparing the value of the estate when all yield has been collected to the value before any yield amendments were made. You must make sure that you give ERS the correct figure for the value of the estate before yield adjustments for it to be able to calculate the final figure accurately.

Before you open a record on ERS you must,

• Make sure that the data that has been captured for the estate on COMPASS reflects the position before any adjustments that give rise to yield were made. You may need to amend the data-capture to do this. This is particularly important if the estate is sub-threshold.
• Make sure that an assessment is issued and saved to reflect the correct value of the estate before any yield adjustments were made. Doing this commits data to the enquiry reporting system and sets the baseline for the calculation of yield on the case. On sub-threshold cases this assessment will be a nil assessment. It must still show the correct figure for the Aggregate Chargeable Transfers before yield adjustments and must still be raised, issued and saved.
• If you are unsure about exact values (such as free estate values when IHT100 only has been received) include your estimates based on the information available.

Only when you have set the correct baseline figure should you open a new ERS record. To open the record select ‘amend’ from the COMPASS main menu and select ‘Compliance’ from the dropdown menu. Click on ‘new’.

Type of record and late accounts

You will notice a dropdown box for type of yield record. The default setting is ‘Capital Adjustment’. You should set it to ‘Late Return’ if no account at all was delivered for the death within the statutory period and you have had to pursue the delivery of an account. Use this category even if your work on the late account also gave rise to capital adjustments.

In such cases where you are pursuing a death account, there are usually no assets that can be data captured before you open the ERS record. You should open ERS before you raise any assessments, to set the baseline aggregate chargeable transfers to ‘nil’. Then capture all the net assets as giving rise to yield on the ERS adjustments screen.

If assessments have already been raised and paid you will not be able to withdraw and reassess them later and the baseline will not be nil. Open ERS as normal and record only the adjustments that give rise to yield, as if it was not 100% yield case. You should continue to work the case in the usual way. When you are ready to close the case you should send a note of the amount of the shortfall, up to the 100% yield amount, to the Products and Process Team.