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.

It's closing a loophole rather than intending to attack farmers. Nobody in Westminster has ever really given a shit about farmers, or understood farming in Britain (which is partly what landed us with Brexit) but it does make sense to stop other landowners from using the farming loophole to dodge inheritance tax on their estates, which is the reality of what's been going on. Good legal and financial advice will steer you round this.

The problem is that farmers are asset rich but cash poor, and that farming is insanely expensive and unreliable. I don't know how any farmers make a profit tbh, especially livestock farmers. Farming plays such an important part in our landscape as a country and it's a shame that the political establishment continually fails to recognise this.

Those who think that the OP is in an extremely privileged position and are struggling to understand or empathise with her situation… if they sold the farm to pay the tax bill, it would likely be sold to investors and property developers to build housing. That housing probably would not end up as social housing and if the majority of farmers do this we will end up unable to provide sufficient homegrown produce, at costs even higher than they currently are and be forced to import a lot of our food.

So who sold the 100s of 1000s of acres to just these two super rich who are trying to avoid IHT, tax which the rest of us will need to make up?

“Many super rich families – with no real connection to farming – are increasingly buying farmland in order to exploit this loophole,” say Tax Justice UK. Critics point to people like Sir James Dyson, of vacuum-cleaner fame, who is reputed to own 36,000 acres of UK farmland, and Anders Holch Povlson, a fast-fashion entrepreneur, who is said to own more than 220,000 acres. Whilst this is presumably all productive farmland, it is undoubtedly also a useful way to shelter fortunes from IHT

I think something will need to be done to keep genuine farms running but it has become a bit of a tax dodge. 4 of the 10 farms I keep bees on are owned by x-investment banker types who brought them for "tax" reasons. As someone mentioned above for all the good Clarkson has done he brought the farm for the tax benefit.

Have you seen the film Idiocracy ? It doesn't seem so far fetched now as it did in 2006

I live in a rural area in Yorkshire, and a lot of farms around here have been parcelling off and selling fields (I am assuming because they get more £ per acre from housing developers than they do farming the land). My small 'town' (which isn't really a town more like a village) has had hundreds and hundreds of new houses built. The developer is even after our allotment land for access to the fields. There is an element of 'NIMBY' on our local FB group but there is also a good point. No infrastructure to manage thousands of extra people living in the area is in place - one primary school was built to replace the smaller school but that's it. The main road through is gridlocked by cars constantly, and seems to be subject to surface repairs every other week, the small health centre is over run, the secondary school about 3 miles up the valley is oversubscribed, there's no room on the school buses to get dc to school etc as too many kids, not enough transport.

If the plan is to force more housing onto land then a more holistic view of what is going to happen to that land and the changing shape of how to live, work and cater in the area also needs to be considered. It hasn't happened during the Conservative government and it isn't happening in the Labour govt either. Westminster isn't the UK - MP's need to take a boots on the ground approach to their constituency and advocate for it. No rural MP is or can be happy about this measure - I am hoping they do their job and point out reality.

I'd argue the land isn't valuable. The value is only there once Planning Permission is granted.
However, much more importantly 3 years ago the cost of food went up drastically, that was down to most of our food being derived from either fertilizer from Russia or wheat and other basics from Ukraine.
So where we have little food security at the moment, we desperately need to cling onto it. We do not needto go back to rationing because we've fallen out with other nations.

At last someone who understands the situation, the politics of envy mean that many are looking at the numbers and not the nature of farming.

@Apate I can't claim credit! But it is such an apt description of the state of things now, isn't it?

this is insanity! we need farmers. desperately!

To be fair, the programme was very good at highlighting the non stop issues faced by real farmers. Eu grants being removed, the issues with the weather, the huge costs needed for machinery and the small profit, the huge work hours, crops failing. Anyone with a brain knows Jeremy Clarkson is a celebrity but the show to me was very eye opening. I had no idea prior to it of the mountain of difficulties that farmers face, day in day out.

In that case I will offer to buy it from you for £10,000. Please send over a contract. Presumably you won't argue too strongly it isn't valuable.

Anyone with a brain knows Jeremy Clarkson is a celebrity but the show to me was very eye opening. I had no idea prior to it of the mountain of difficulties that farmers face, day in day out.

Indeed. Clarkson was pretty open about the fact that he could take the risk of trying out new approaches because he had other income streams, but that most farmers don't have that luxury.

To be fair, though, more than half of farmers voted for Brexit. Always thought that was an extremely self-harming act, and I still don’t understand what the pro-Brexit farmers were thinking.

@ChaosHol1 and JC said the only way he could finance the farm etc was because he had other money behind him, so didn't have the same financial hardship if crops failed etc. But a real eye opener to find out how much it costs and the effort to farm an acre of land or rear an animal and how much (or little) you make from them.

Yeah I must admit I've been worried about the link between the need to build new houses and the increasingly pressing need for farmers to sell off their land to make a living. We do need new houses but it needs to be done correctly or Britain is going to end up as one giant ugly estate with no wildlife - and we also won't be able to come anywhere close to meeting any of our own food needs, meaning we'll be dependent on imports, which also isn't great with a looming climate/refugee crisis. But Westminster has never been great at taking a long-term view of anything.

We do not need policy that makes farmers sell their land.
We don't need more real estate to be developed into houses. We need clean and healthy rivers and land that grows food sustainably. We need generations of home grown landholders cheerful to work the land and leave it better than they inherited it. Large international investors just want to monetise the real estate.
We need farmers able to invest in the care of their land and on growing food near to populations of eaters.
No to concrete jungles and large population growth over fertile farmland
No to disappearing bird and wildlife habitats.

I want farmers to spend what is necessary to keep the land healthy - not forced to sell the land to pay taxes.

I hope the new measures are over turned.
People deserve food grown to high standards grown by resident farmers.

absolutely staggered by the sheer ignorance of people who cant see why this policy is not only going to have a huge impact on individuals but a massive impact on them. the average age of a farmer in this country is 65. they work, basically until they drop because they love the land and because of the "next year" principle of each crop. Its not people that farm as a job, its families that farm. and naturally you want to pass it on to your descendents. this is exactly the same policy of envy that broke up all of the old country houses by making people pay death duties rather than being able to pass them on. whilst that was fair imo, this absolutely is not.

and how does allowing farm land to be sold off for housing actually square with any green principles.

we need to grow more of our own food and not less. the less we grow the more we import. this makes us dependent on other countries just to feed us and at their mercy in terms of prices. plus all the energy wasted flying/sailing food, the extra packaging etc.

and in 10 years time when you drive your favourite drive or visit rural counties in the north, the east and the sw and look across what were once fields with sheep cows and crop and see them covered in little identikit houses you can thank smirky starmer. This is what happens when you have no one in the cabinet with a rural background. so much for rural proofing all decisions eh rach!

I can see why this is so upsetting but you must also see why a lot of people won't have much sympathy for someone with assets worth that much?
It's a very extreme reaction by your FIL as well and if you think he really is suicidal then you need professional help.

Can I ask why the farm is solely in one person's name? DH's family farm is a company and all the family take dividends (and salaries if applicable) so I don't think anyone would be liable for inheritance tax on the entire farm (I assume the deceased's share would be included in the valuation of their estate).

Definitely seek financial advice.

Clarkson is a showman, he even said that many of his views and statements he has made over the years were made for entertainment value & not what he really believed.

What he says about anything at all has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

What he says about anything at all has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

So what part of what he said to you disagree with? That he has other income streams? That farmers can't afford to take risks and operate at a massive loss?

TBF this has been going on for years and Labour have only been in power for 3 months. As a horse rider, I can see how much of the countryside is gradually turning into housing and industrial estates. Blaming Labour is unfair as the Tories were no different.

We need a political class that cares about farming/the environment and we just don't have that.

He's 83!!!! How the fuck is he going to live for another 30 years

Remember farmers also benefit from the existing nil rate exemptions which allow a married couple to leave £1m tax free. Add that to the £1m agricultural exemption and the 50% relief above that and it is still a very generous allowance