§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what actions his Department has taken in each of the last four years to make the public aware of their rights of access to homes containing works of art granted exemption from inheritance tax. [26338]
§ Dawn PrimaroloThe Revenue website dedicated to information about tax-exempt works of art remains the primary vehicle for informing the public, as it has been since its launch in 1996. The site was redesigned in 2000 to make it more user-friendly and to give fuller information about public access to heritage assets. The number of hits on the site has increased from less than 1,000 per month at the beginning of 1998 to around 15,000 per month currently.
Owners of tax-exempt heritage assets, particularly historic houses and their contents, increasingly maintain their own websites or have some other presence on the Internet: we now offer such owners the facility of a link from the Revenue website.
The Revenue website can be accessed direct at www.cto.eds.co.uk or through the Revenue's main website at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk.