By making Jeremy Clarkson their spokesperson, Farmers have shot themselves in the foot

There are 500 people, by definition rich landowners who are affected by this. Why should I pay 40% on my estate which includes a business, when a farmer only has to pay 20%? (To be clear I think we should both pay 40%).

Farmers also get cheap diesel and pay no road tax.

If anyone is screwing farmers, it's supermarkets.

Clarkson is either lying now about why he bought a far, or he was lying then. The idea that he would have been anything other than proud of shooting on his land is laughable.

They screamed the loudest for Brexit, which has cost us all £100 billion. Thry got what they wanted, it’s not my fault they were lied to, so they will have to suck it up. 🙄

I think the difference is I can’t eat your house.

This, I totally agree. 3 million tax free and then half the rate of tax the rest of us would have to pay. As a single parent, who has a family home and disabled children, my allowance is £500K which I think is just under what my house is worth. My kids will have to pay 40% on any amount over the threshold and they will not have the 10 years that the farmers children will have to pay it

Completely agree.

It baffles me that various governments are happy to give away both our energy & food security. I just don't understand why?!!

Totally agree

Why don't farmers make their farms a business so it's not passing it on to family but instead they could sell it on (which could be given to family at a super low price)?

This is a genuine question.

@FelixtheAardvark "You don't see the Duke of Devonshire worrying about IHT on his vast estates do you."

Nor the other 19 Dukes who are major landowners- several of them significantly more substantial than Devonshire.

I thought he was brilliant on Clarkson's Farm but oh boy he was so rude to Victoria Derbyshire this afternoon when she was interviewing him at the march. Totally unnecessary and did the farmers cause more harm than good I'd say

There are some incredibly dismissive posts of Clarkson on this thread.

I don't think he is remotely 'Reform'. Yes Conservative but not Reform.

You can tell the posters who have watched Clarkson's farm and those who haven't.

Tbh whilst on a personal level he maybe trying to dodge the inheritance, I also think he understands how the change will effect other farmers.

I know that this might be a different concept to hold for some people, but it's Clarkson is right about somethings and wrong about others and he can be both an arse and be doing something very constructive for farmers.

At the same time.

But it seems impossible for people to get beyond anyone being 'good' or 'evil' in a childish simple view of the world.

Yup. He’s a hobby farmer and a tax dodging C&nt.
They should bin him and have some real farmers - and not poshos who’ve inherited big estates, actual farmers who’s assets are £1m+ but who aren’t wealthy

He's a twat. And he's not been elected, he's just a self appointed bigmouth

The government are blatantly banking on land being sold to developers to mass build on greenfield sites.

But what will we eat?

‘ Hope they tax Grouse Shooting out of existence .. monoculture ruining the biodiversity of the countryside, so a few rich boys can dress in tweed, leaving piles of rotting birds behind‘

Grouse were £27 a brace * at the farm gate where I am this year. Not much danger of rotting piles being left on the ground when they fetch that much.

( BtW , grouse moorland is very poor in nutrients and not much else will grow there, nor do many other birds or animals find it a prosperous environment for ‘bio diversity’ . So the grouse moors are a pretty good use for that land. )

’Brace’ = Tweed ‘ term for two 🤭

For grazing horses so no food.
Agree this is a bad use of land. Not as bad as golf courses but still bad.
Until the day oil becomes too expensive and we return to horses for transport.

Hobbyist farmers who only provide for their own house.
So like a super-big garden then? I have no issue with this (at least, no more of an issue than I have with anyone owning a huge house and/or garden).

People who just want a patch of land to one day do something or because land goes up in value. Purchased by investors and Left to just sit because they cannot currently get planning but holding the land till one day they hope they can.
But banked-land will have to be used eventually (even if years later), or sold on with tax to pay at some point. So only a temporary delay.
Meanwhile, idle land is very good for nature and wildlife (as long as they don't keep 'clearing' it), and it gives the soil a chance to recover.

It will be straightforward for real inter-generational farming families to pass down these assets to avoid IHT. What we have is a group of very rich landowners like Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail and James Dyson stirring up smaller farmers to protest so they can retain the tax breaks.

It gets sold to huge farming conglomerates who will get as much yield for as little money as possible and in so doing use chemicals, tear down hedgerows and ruin our bio-diversity. It will destroy our food supplies, deplete already nutrient starved soil, damage the eco-system and allow the government to start having control over the food we eat.

Add allotments to that list. Lovely for individuals but again not as useful overall as being farmed large scale.

I can't see land prices coming down - because at 20% tax instead of 40% it is still a good inheritance tax dodge.
Just slightly less good than it was.
So millionaires will still buy up farmland.

He is great at self promotion and self interest.

For grazing horses so no food.
Hobbyist farmers who only provide for their own house. People who just want a patch of land to one day do something or because land goes up in value.

Purchased by investors and Left to just sit because they cannot currently get planning but holding the land till one day they hope they can.

Not every bit of farm land sold ends up back in large scale farming.

Exactly. Farmers are the new people Labour are going for but we really need more food security not less.

Sorry - didn’t attach

The more farm land that’s sold off the less farming will actually happen.

This bit I don't understand.
If the farmland is sold, it can only go to another farm - likely a much bigger farm.

I suppose if it got planning permission then houses could be built - which is a good thing as I think the need for houses is greater than the need for UK-grown food.

It seems vanishingly unlikely that the land would be bought for anything else. Golf courses?