The deadline for the inheritance tax return

The inheritance tax return does not have the same deadline for every file. The Belastingdienst ties the deadline to the year of death. If someone died in 2026, the return must be in within twenty months of the date of death. If someone died in 2025 or earlier, a deadline of eight months applies. An older file does not automatically take the longer deadline just because the work happens later. Write the date of death at the top and derive the deadline from it. Without that date, a reminder on the task list is only a guess, not a deadline.

The letter from the Belastingdienst states a date. That date is the anchor for the deadline, not a loose reminder in the margin. For a death in 2025 or earlier, a request for an extension must be in before the date stated on that letter. If the request comes later, the eight-month deadline simply continues to run. For a death in 2026 the Belastingdienst describes a filing deadline of twenty months. How the interest starts in that case is set out in the letter itself. Copy that explanation and do not invent a start date of your own. File the letter with the documents and put the same date on the task.

The duty to file a return does not stop because the post is late. If an heir received more than their own exemption, a return must be filed, even if the letter has not yet arrived. The Belastingdienst does not send it on the same day in every file. A late letter does not make the acquisition smaller. Put a task for the return on the list as soon as the acquisition exceeds the exemption, and not only when the envelope is on the mat. Someone who stays under their own exemption can be in a different position. You make that check per heir, because the circle has no shared exemption that applies to everyone at once.

The task records the date of death, the year of death and the deadline that goes with them. For a death in 2026 you write twenty months. For a death in 2025 or earlier you write eight months. Add who supplies the figures and who follows whether the return goes out. Ervazo does not file the return. The inheritance tax screen is an indication using the Belastingdienst tables for 2026, not a return form. That indication shows whether an acquisition appears to pass the exemption. The form itself goes outside the software and belongs within the deadline that fits that year of death.

This piece sets the deadlines side by side as the Belastingdienst describes them. Twenty months for a death in 2026, eight months for a death in 2025 or earlier. The date on the letter is the anchor for an extension in those older cases. The piece does not say which form is the right one, and it calculates no interest. An executor or an heir remains responsible for the filing. This is not legal advice and not tax advice. For the question whether a return must be filed in this file, and for the interest the letter mentions, you go to the Belastingdienst or to an adviser who knows the documents.