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

@Vynalbob

Yes I feel for the tenant farmers in all this. I hope this gives them a chance of their own land. Assume their rich landlords will probably put their rents up again though.

There hasn't been a Ministry of Agriculture since 2002...

This☝️
A lot of the farmers are tennant farmers round here who'd probably love to be asset rich....but that's a different problem.
I think people are upsetting a lot of farmers for the few farmers/land owners who it will effect.

No I dont support them at all

I believe inheritance tax should be paid for the house and yard but not for the rest of the property. Labour voter.

80% did not vote for Brexit.

Not true. Farmers voted broadly in line with the test of the population. Slightly in favour, and varied by region.

Absolutely. If they wanted to crack down on tax avoidance there are definitely more nuanced ways they could have done it. As someone who understands IHT and has audited farms, I know this policy will definitely hit the average family farm, which will not make enough profit to pay off IHT even at a reduced rate over 10 years.

The fact that land prices have gone up only makes someone rich if they sell. No different to house prices going up. £3m doesn’t get you much of a farm at todays prices, especially when you also factor in the cost of the farm buildings, farmhouse, animals, crops in the ground, machinery etc. At today’s land prices a majority of proper farms (not hobby ones or small holdings) will be worth over £3m but will make less profit than an average salary.

@Whoyergonnacall my dad would fit into that category. He’s a life long farmer, he thinks the rules should be changed to those who derive more than 80% of their income from the farm they own/live on. He’s chilled about bankers/investors having to pay, and at the other end people who’ve been using the exemption as a bonus on their fields they have for horses or pet goats.

These are very very unlikely to be people on 3 mil farms.

So they won't pay iht anyway.

And many cannot.

Thanks for saying this before I could. There’s an awful lot of misinformation on this thread about how IHT works and how farming works. Much of that is due to poor media reporting, which really isn’t helping.

And yet so many have done in the past ..

No they can’t. If the farmer is still living in the farmhouse then the gift rules don’t work. Few will be able to afford to buy a property off farm to move out into.

It’s targeted at people trying to avoid tax. I don’t support the farmers but might review my position if there is evidence it impacts a disproportionate number of others and that the ameliorations eg payment of tax over time aren’t sufficient.

Without evidence a lot of the arguments I’ve heard appear to be about the principle of not wanting to pay more tax and clearly no-one ever wants to lose something that has benefited them. If it really is about the impact on farming then Id like to hear farmers disassociate themselves from those who are openly using it as a tax dodge. If there is a genuinely negative impact on normal farmers then I would be sympathetic to a compromise that resulted in people Jeremy Clarkson who is on the record as saying he’s bought farmland as a tax dodge and James Dyson etc paying far more so that the tax relief apply more narrowly to the people intended to benefit from it.

Unfortunately over 80% of farmers voted for Brexit. These new tarriffs/ taxes are to recoup the billions of pounds lost thanks to leaving the EU. While I sympathise with some issues, there is a sense of 'you reap what you sow'.

The trouble with Clarkson is he has admitted publicly when he first bought the farm that it was bought to dodge IHT

So he is part of the reasons the government have sought to bring in these changes to close the loopholes

What I'm really interested in, is why so many Tory voters think Labour should be supporting the farmers when the Tory's didn't.

The farms that have been sold in the last 10 years have started going to very wealthy people. They don't want to farm for national security. Why are Tory voters saying it's on poor people to farm to provide this security. Why are they so against rich people being deterred from buying the farms?

Not one single policy idea regarding farming from the Tories has been about food security.
So what the holy fuck are you all actually whinging about?

If you break it down the top rate of WFA of £300 works out at something like £5 odd per week I can’t honestly see that makes any difference to someone’s income…and like I said they’ve gained more with the triple lock!

They also voted Brexit and for selfish reasons and in turn shafted the rest of us!

Not all of us - I don’t know anyone my age who did. Equally I don’t know anyone my age who will suffer any hardship through not receiving an extra £150. You’d expect Age UK to over egg it, they’re a campaigning organisation after all.

I support the farmers. Noone should have to sell their home and business to pay their inheritance tax.

Labour introduced this without, allegedly, consulting the ministry of agriculture. Was this a grand gesture at taxing millionaire ‘farmers’ without talking to the ones who actually produce our food?