Scotland has its own land transaction tax, its own income tax rates and its own courts, so it is a fair assumption that inheritance tax is different there too. It is not. Inheritance tax is a United Kingdom tax and it is not devolved, which means a Scottish estate is worked out on exactly the thresholds and the rate that apply in England. What is genuinely different sits around the tax rather than inside it.
The tax itself is the same tax
The nil rate band is £325,000 and the residence nil rate band a further £175,000, on the same conditions, wherever in the United Kingdom the person lived. The rate is 40% on the part of the estate above the threshold, and the reduced 36% rate applies where 10% or more of the net value goes to charity. A calculator built for a Scottish estate and one built for an English estate should return the same number.
What is different: the grant
The document that authorises the executors is called confirmation in Scotland rather than a grant of probate, and GOV.UK uses that word directly when it explains that a payment towards the tax is usually needed before it is issued. The tax position is identical; the court process and the vocabulary are not, and a search for a Scottish calculator is often really a question about that process.
What is different: who inherits
Scottish succession law gives a surviving spouse, civil partner and children legal rights in the deceased's moveable estate that cannot be defeated by a will. That changes who receives what, and therefore which exemptions apply to which share, so it can change the tax even though the tax rules are identical. It is the strongest reason to take Scottish advice on a Scottish estate.
What is different: the taxes around it
The taxes a Scottish family meets in the same year genuinely are devolved. A property bought or sold in Scotland is charged to Land and Buildings Transaction Tax rather than Stamp Duty Land Tax, on Revenue Scotland's own bands. It is easy to carry that difference across to inheritance tax by analogy, and the analogy does not hold.
Questions people ask about inheritance tax Scotland calculator
Is inheritance tax devolved to Scotland?
No. It is a United Kingdom tax with the same thresholds and the same rate throughout, so a Scottish estate and an English estate of the same value and shape produce the same figure. The devolved taxes a family meets are the property transaction tax and the income tax rates, not this one.
Is probate different in Scotland?
The equivalent is called confirmation, and GOV.UK refers to it by that name when it sets out that a payment towards inheritance tax is usually needed before the grant is issued. The court and the paperwork differ; the tax due does not.
Do legal rights change the tax?
They can, indirectly. Scottish succession law gives a spouse, civil partner and children rights in the moveable estate regardless of the will, so the shares that actually pass may not be the shares the will describes. Exemptions follow who receives what, so the destination changes and the tax can change with it.
Which calculator should a Scottish executor use?
Any correct United Kingdom inheritance tax calculation, because the tax is the same. What a Scottish estate needs that is genuinely Scottish is advice on succession law and the confirmation process, and an enquiry from here goes to a firm that does that work.