To ask why you support the farmers, regarding inheritance tax?

Every single small family farm which owns farming equipment will be liable. And who won’t be liable? The massive landowners like the crown estate, the landed gentry and foreign investors who will gobble up the small farms and sell them to developers for housing and subsidised solar farms.

Those of you who enjoy holidaying in the British countryside will moan but it will be too late.

The other thing that the government doesn’t appear to have considered in their petty targeting of farmers (as it won’t raise a lot of money - why aren’t they targeting top earners which would be much more lucrative) is food security. A country which is reliant on food imports to feed its population is very, very vulnerable.

Ukraine’s abilit to feed itself has been enormously helpful in their fight against Russian invasion. Under Starmer’s plans, the U.K. is toast.

Not really, an accurate summary.

Agree.

Then he needs to hand it to his son now when there’s still a reasonable chance of living for another seven years and the IHT miraculously disappears. It’s not rocket science.

Our food supply chain will suffer and we will be more reliant than ever on imports

Agree with both here

It's so bad

This is untrue. Farmland has become deeply attractive to non Farmers in recent years for the tax breaks and profitability on the land. The increase in land value is staggering and needs halted.
farming.co.uk/news/strutt--parker-press-release-non-farmers-bought-more-than-half-of-farms-and-estates-in-2023

Very clear that some of you don't understand farms or farmers. Fine, no worries, you do you, but please don't complain when the face of the countryside is altered, your favourite jogging spots spoiled and you can't afford eggs.

If Reeves truly wanted to protect family farms and go after conglomerates all she had to do was extend the tax free transfer of a farm from a spouse to also then include a child or sibling. That's all. Family farms would be protected Ad Infinitum and businesses would need to pay up. But the reason she hasn't done that is because that isn't what she wants. She knows how much land value has gone up. So she wants to cream some of that off, out of the pockets of farmers because like a lot of you she really hates them and their values.

Of course they have options. Are you saying offspring of farmers never leave? Nonsense.

Inheriting farmers don’t get ‘a tax break’ they get a noise around their neck and a lifetime job no sane person who has seen the options would choose. Now we’re going to tax them for the pleasure🤦🏼‍♀️

This!!!

So much ignorance.

I think it’s a lot of fuss about nothing. It will basically only touch the very few and I really don’t see why farmers should be offered such huge tax breaks when no one else is.. Even with the changes, They’ve still got a very good deal. All the farmers round here are Tories. They like to hang on to their money. Most of them seem very comfortably off indeed. I think they will survive.

So to those who say farmers dont have the money to pay and will need to sell land or equipment etc, why do you think Starmer is doing it? To reduce the size of farms?

I don't support them.

They have more generous terms than anyone else that has family business, large 'estates', 'homes' and 'art collections' that they want to pass on to their children.

We're not talking about small, family farms. We're talking about the conglomerates that took advantage when the change giving them the exemption came in.... Small family farms will still remain largely inheritance tax free under the new rules.

Yes this. So many frothers on here have never seen a tractor in the field.

The mortgages on many generational farms are ways to borrow money against the value of the land. There are not many SMEs without some level of borrowing against the land they own. So yes many are impacted.

Supermarkets will plead poverty they always do, the roofing reinforcement would cost squillions. Nice idea though

https://www.instagram.com/p/DChGv3FIzXi/?igsh=bW9hMWYyZWljZjMy

I’ll leave this here.Right to Roam. Why should anybody support farmers when they don’t support right to roam for those not lucky enough to live on £3 million pound farms.

This pretty much. Most farms family owned - land rich, possibly decent cars and houses tied to the farm but work all days and hours god sends.

The land might be worth over the limit but they aren't going to have funds to pay the tax bill unless agriculture land is sold - for what more houses?

Yes I support the farmers. As with everything to do with government I think that a lot of this anger could have been avoided if there had been consultation and notice - I heard today that DEFRA were only told days beforehand that this was to be in the budget.

Absolutely change the IHT rules but this blanket one size fits all approach is a disaster in the making. It seems to me that it's an attitude of "all people who own land/farm are rich bastards, let's tax them to death". Without doubt people have exploited loopholes - that's nothing new - and those loopholes should be closed, but a more nuanced and targetted approach would have, in my opinion been a better way forward. From where I am, in the rural West Midlands, they give the impression that they really don't understand or care about the countryside, and that's frightening. This is from their 2024 manifesto "Support farmers in Britain to grow more food." and this is a quote from Keir Mather, Labour MP for Selby in April this year "Rural voters are trusting Labour again – we must not let them down". Not much support or trust now I suspect. I did not and never would vote for Reform, nor did I vote for Brexit before anyone tells me it's all my own fault because of that!

War in the Ukraine has had a huge impact on this country, as have the recent floods in Spain and I don't believe that things like that are going to go away anytime soon. I do not want all my food to come from abroad, with the environmental impact and the reduced welfare standards - we should be aiming to produce more food not less, and that's what will happen if so many of these farms go to the wall.

One last thing - I don't think many people are aware that this doesn't just affect farming - to quote the Family Business UK group "family businesses across the UK are equally affected and the consequences of removing business relief are just as devastating. FBUK calculates that 85,000 family businesses are passed on to the next generation every year."

Unfortunately if you do agree with the changes you're just accused of not understanding farming, probably by some townie who thinks they know it all as they visit the local 'petting farm' once a year.

I don't because i don't see that farms are any different to other family owned businesses. Whilst there are a small number of family farms going to be affected, I can't feel sorry for the huge landowners and gentleman farmers eg Clarkson who thought they could avoid inheritance taxes by buying agricultural land. With £1m allowance per person on top of the £325 each you get, that's a substantial tax free sum to pass on. Farmers can also transfer the deeds to their successor and hope to live long enough not to be affected by inheritance tax

You are right of course, it is a fundamental question of how we have allowed a very small group of very large businesses to hold our food resources in their hands.

We've been sold the idea of very cheap food from friendly neighbourhood shops which are in reality very large businesses that run not only with the thumbscrews on their most basic suppliers, but also using the welfare system to subsidise their use of minimum wage.

What data do you want?

I've worked in wills and probate for 20 years with lots of farming clients who I respect enormously. I don't think the new iht rules are too bad. In practice it will be farms worth over 3 million that pay tax, when you take into account other reliefs available. Most farms have buildings that have been turned into productive holiday homes- these can be sold if necessary to pay the iht bill.
The likes of Clarkson and Dyson will find a way to evade tax, as the rich usually do.
I do however wish there was some plan so that land isn't bought up by developers, and so that those that want to get involved in sustainable farming and smallholdings can do so and make a profit. Its pretty much impossible to be able to get involved in farming if you haven't been born into it. We need more sustainable small scale younger farmers to get involved in the profession and I feel the government have missed an opportunity for food production and sustainable farming.