Do you need your parent/s to die before April 2026? *MNHQ adding content warning mentions suicide*

[Spatulation]

Absolutely reeling that we're losing the farm that my grandfather bought, my father expanded and my son hoped to takeover.

The budget today means that we'll owe £1000000 in tax and we won't be able to get a mortgage as that's 5 times our annual income and over 35000 times bigger than last year's profit.

We own soil. That's it.

Agriculture has the highest suicide rate in any profession - sadly I can see it hitting an all time high in the next 18 months. My father (83) is already talking about it.

So your family has a £6m farm?!

If you owe £1,000,000 in tax, you’re in a far, far better financial situation than most.

I’m so sorry anyone is feeling that way. Could you explain the policy which is causing this (not being goady I just wasn’t reading the budget for farming news)?

Not for much longer.

Unless my dad kills himself in the next 18 months.

The budget has removed inheritance tax relief on family farms, so they'll have to be sold to pay the tax on the death of the owner.

But to have property that's costing £1m in tax then it must be worth millions - so you'll still have that

Finding it hard to be upset for someone who stands to still inherit millions

Do you mean you'll have to sell the farm to pay the 1 million, and you'll be left with 5 million?

My father is wanting to kill himself, you read the fucking post!

The impact is going to be catastrophic for farmers and for UK food production.

It’s not like sitting on £6m worth of gold bars.

Don’t be so unkind. The OP is allowed to feel devastated about losing the farm which has been in his family for generations due to the budget changes.

And what did YOU do to deserve a £6m farm. ? .. or was it just the luck of birth ?

If you cant afford it and it makes so little money then surely no one wants a loss making business ... sell it .. pretty sure you won't be living on benefits to supplement your income ?

And what do folk think will happen to farming if all farmers just sell the land! It’s a total way of life that will be lost.

What's stopping you - when the time comes - selling a sixth of the farm and carrying on with the rest?

He needs to calm down and take some estate planning advice. There are straightforward and legal ways to avoid inheritance tax in this type of scenario.

Well if you actually wanted to start a thread with the main problem being your dad wants to take his own life, people might be more understanding and sympathetic.

But as your main worry is not inheriting as much money as you thought you would, you've come across as incredibly cold and crass.

There are some vile responses on this thread. Can’t you show some empathy for the OP instead of spewing vitriol out of jealousy?

I read on another thread that apparently people were falsely classifying non-farmed land as farms to avoid inheritance tax, and this rule change is trying to address that, rather than just wanting to club farmers. Also, Reeves said in her budget speech that only 1 in four farming estates will be affected.

Hopefully more will became clear in the coming days. I hope your father will be OK one the shock has passed and he can get some proper advice.

I wouldn't inherit any money, there isn't any money, that's not how farming works. There's only money if you sell, he doesn't want to break up the farm.

The only thing you inherit is the ability to look after a chunk of land as well as you can while feeding the nation. Family farms do this far better than the huge landowning companies.

The general population doesn't understand farming at all.

The ignorance is staggering OP. I was almost in tears this evening - friends wanting to give up farming, losing the motivation of passing on the farm to the next generation and the suicides have already started.

What most people don’t realise is that someone with a £6m farm may still be earning less than minimum wage and the return on their investment is just 0.5%.

It won’t be so funny though when we have more and more food shortages because no bigger can afford to stay in business. Oh, and food gets more expensive because other countries won’t sell on the shitty terms our supermarkets provide. So we get the bottom of the barrel at top dollar.

Stay strong OP! We don’t know the fine detail yet. I’m hopeful there’ll be a way to mitigate IHT through a business structure or trust.

It’s just devastating and so short-sighted.

So you have to sell land. I do realise that is a very common trigger for suicidal thoughts amongst farmers. It's a very real feeling. I sympathise. At the same time it needs to be possible for people to become farmers. They're hardly going to be able to if there are lots of people like you who inherit and never let go of any land at all. We have to work towards a fairer society but it is deeply painful that this feeling should be ignited within your family. You're not losing your livelihood. I'm sure you can still make a 5 million farm run efficiently if that is even what it amounts to which it may not.

People are just seeing this as op not wanting to pay inheritance tax on a huge windfall. Someone was talking about this on the live budget thread earlier today, but responses were completely different and emphasis was on what it will do to the countryside and food production. It is something to be concerned about, I agree.

On another note, I’m sick to death of tone deaf, tiny violins and all the rest of it.

I'm sorry op. This was a ridiculous measure. I would put money on it being repealed.