Lowes Trust Registration Guide

Introduction

The HMRC Trust Registration Service (TRS) the TRS became operational on 13 July 2017 and was originally launched in order to fulfill the Governments obligations under the 4th Money Laundering Directive (“4MLD”).

Following the implementation of the 5th Money Laundering Directive (“5MLD”) in January 2020 trustees of ‘non-taxable’ trusts will also now be required to register with the HMRC Trust Registration Service (TRS). The term ‘non-taxable’ trusts is used here to describe trusts which have not yet incurred a tax liability, not to describe trusts that are in some way exempt from taxation.

As a result of 5MLD the legal responsibility for registration lies with the trustees. The extended requirements now means that more or less all UK trusts will need to register, although there are certain ‘excluded’ trusts which will be exempt from the requirement. These are covered later in this guidance document.

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