Citation, commencement and effect

1. —(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Post Office Horizon Shortfall Scheme and Group Litigation Order Compensation Payments (Inheritance Tax Relief) Regulations 2023 and come into force on 9th October 2023.

(2) These Regulations have effect from—

(a) 1st May 2020 in relation to Horizon Shortfall Scheme compensation payments, and

(b) 1st August 2022 in relation to Group Litigation Order compensation payments.

Interpretation

2. In these Regulations—

“ Group Litigation Order compensation payment ” means a payment of compensation made by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or the Department for Business and Trade to a person who was a party to a claim against Post Office Limited in respect of the Horizon system that was subject to a group litigation order;

“ Horizon Shortfall Scheme compensation payment ” means a payment of compensation made to a person under the scheme created by Post Office Limited on 1st May 2020 to compensate people who were adversely affected by accounting shortfalls related to the Horizon system and includes a top-up payment made under that scheme to account for sums lost to tax;

“ the Horizon system ” means any version of the computer system used by Post Office Limited known as Horizon, Horizon Legacy, Horizon Online or HNG-X;

“ Post Office Limited ” means the private company limited by shares with the company number 02154540 whose registered office is 100 Wood Street, London, United Kingdom, EC2V 7ER.

Relief from inheritance tax for Horizon Shortfall Scheme compensation payments and Group Litigation Order compensation payments

3. The following compensation payments are qualifying payments for the purposes of paragraph 5 of Schedule 15 to the Finance Act 2020—

(a) Horizon Shortfall Scheme compensation payments, and

(b) Group Litigation Order compensation payments.