The gifts and 7-year rule timeline
The seven-year rule is a set of dates, and dates are what people lose track of. Add each gift with the day it was made, and this shows which are exempt, which the allowances cover, which have passed seven years and which would still be counted, and the taper band each sits in. It never states a tax bill.
Today, to see where things stand. Or a later date, to see which gifts would still count if that were the date of death.
Worked out on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere, and closing the tab clears the list.
What it decides, and from where
Every rule is from GOV.UK's Inheritance Tax guidance on gifts: the exemptions for spouses, civil partners and charities, the £3,000 annual exemption and its one-year carry-forward, the wedding gift limits, the seven-year cut-off, the £325,000 threshold and the taper from 40% down to 8%. Each is applied in date order.
The tool was tested against GOV.UK's own worked example of three gifts made nine, four and three years before a death. Our gifts and the 7-year rule page sets each rule out with its source.
What it will not do
It will not put a figure on tax, because that depends on the estate and on allowances it cannot see. It does not apply the £250 small gifts exemption, which depends on no other allowance having been used on the same person that year, a check it cannot make from a list.
It assumes the list is complete: a tax year with no gift entered is treated as one whose £3,000 exemption went unused, so a gift left off can make the next year look better covered than it was. It takes your word on regular gifts from income and on gifts you still benefit from, because both are judgements HMRC makes on the facts.
Gifts into trusts are listed but not scored. Trusts have their own Inheritance Tax charges, which GOV.UK covers separately and this tool does not attempt.
Common questions
Does this tell me how much Inheritance Tax will be due?
No, and it is built not to. Whether tax is due turns on the whole estate, the residence allowance and any threshold passed from a spouse, which is HMRC's arithmetic. What GOV.UK does publish is which gifts are exempt, which allowances cover them, the seven-year cut-off, the threshold and the taper, and those are what it shows.
Which gifts does it treat as exempt?
Gifts to a spouse or civil partner and gifts to charity, which GOV.UK says are always free of tax. Wedding gifts up to £5,000 for a child, £2,500 for a grandchild and £1,000 for anyone else. The £3,000 annual exemption, with one year's unused amount carried forward. And regular gifts from income, which you have to mark yourself.
Why does a counted gift show a taper band if I am within the threshold?
Because the band is a fact about the gift's age, but taper relief only bites where the gifts made in the seven years before death add up to more than £325,000. Within the threshold no tax is charged on the gifts; they use up threshold that would otherwise cover the estate. The result says which case applies to the total.
Is anything I enter stored?
No. The gifts stay in your browser, nothing is transmitted or logged, and closing the tab clears the list. There is no account and no email box. The result is a table of the gifts with the rule each one met, a total against the threshold, and a link to the page that explains every rule used.
A gift made to bring savings under the care means test is judged by a different rule with no time limit at all. Our deprivation of assets page covers it. If someone has died, the executor's Inheritance Tax deadlines are on the probate deadline planner.