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.

You've shown a breath taking lack of initial knowledge, and of absorbing the wealth of knowledge (not opinions, knowledge) on this thread. But thanks for playing.

I can forgive ignorance from a lack of knowledge.

You would hope a chancellor who was a chess champion (joint 26th in the 1993 Under 14s tournament) would be able to think a few moves ahead and consider the ramifications of family farmers selling up to pay death duties, wouldn’t you?

Well as the equivalent of the population of Stratford upon Avon arrives in the UK on small boats each year, people who are put up in hotels and kept warm and fed 3 meals a day at the tax payers expense, I would say halting the boats and therefore also saving the lives of many would help the economy and save lives of those who die crossing. We need to tackle this at source by persuading people the UK is not the golden country they think.

Better Tax reliefs for investment into business, rewarding those who grow the economy

Moving the money pit that is the NHS to a public/private model that is seen in many other countries would definitely help.

Ending right to buy.

Getting more people back into work, ending the benefits culture cycle in families. We could tie this in to a service, say collecting litter, community building projects, gardening of common land like parks etc delivery of meals on wheels, companionship services for the elderly etc for those who claim benefits to partake in to build skills for the workforce.

Bringing more manufacturing back to the UK. Reduced vat on items manufactured in UK.

Adding a sales tax to items sold to be delivered, get more people out into high streets

Just a few ideas

Government said they wanted to put more money in people's pockets by the end of their government,so that wasn't on their agenda.
But yes it should I increase for the richest

It shouldn’t be just for the richest. Our current model doesn’t work. You cannot have a tiny minority paying most of the tax. That’s not how it works in countries that have decent public services. Everyone needs to pay more.

What do people think about the fact that value of farmland rocketed in the UK in the past 20 odd years and as farmland is very limited it it's not suddenly going to start loosing value. I understand that farming and being a farmer is a way of life, I get that, but however 'cash poor' some farmers are they are, by any definition, very wealthy. Does it sit right that their land (and typically their homes too) should be totally exempt from inheritance tax?

Financial experts - including the IFS - said months ago that what Labour needed to do in order to raise the funds needed is to put 1p or 2p on income tax for everyone. You can’t keep on hitting up the higher earners for everything, when the majority of people are on 20% (including me) then they need to pay too.

Does it sit right that their land (and typically their homes too) should be totally exempt from inheritance tax?

Yes because if the farms are sold, the buyers aren't going to be British farmers with generations of knowledge. As previous posters have pointed out, we (as a nation) will lose both the farmland and the skills. That's a loss to us all and if an exemption from inheritence tax is a way to preserve that then I'm all for it.

I'd be quite happy with farmers having to submit evidence that they are running a working farm, however, to close the loopholes of the weathly investing in agricultural land to avoid IHT.

It costs less to keep them in hotels than send back
Boarder force is 3 small boats .
I don't even think this was mentioned in the budget .
I think doing anything different is going to cost more so government don't bother .
Look at all the money wasted with the Rwanda scheme ,we are never getting that money back ,and another country is now going to use what we paid for
Going private for NHS is a step backwards and fine for people who can afford to pay extra ,for the vulnerable and low income it must remain free
Yes agree with getting more people into work ,maybe some volunteering for benefits,and actually instead of sending more people to prison, community service that does good .. although that might cost the same in supervision
Yes totally to manufacturing being brought back ,I hate that so much is imported .
Amazon and other big companies seem to avoid tax ,.in 2022 Amazon made 222 million and paid no corporation tax ...how is that being allowed .
And right to buy ,was a disaster that should never of been allowed

I come from a rural area then served by a few Grammar schools. Clever kids of course ‘passed’ and went to these.
The alternatives were the Secondary Moderns. No farmer would want his children in the same class as the cow man’s kids, so there were a lot of small fee paying private schools catering mainly for the farmers.
These were known as ‘Farmers’ Duds Schools’, as the pupils were generally none too bright.

That's interesting. I expect the 'duds' did better than they would have in a secondary modern, there's more to education than academia. There are still schools in this country for those not very academic but they do well at some things and leave quite confident, with some accomplishments.

Some bright kids went to secondary moderns and many of those did really badly.

There are grammar schools near where I live which are very good, I can think of four where I know or have known children to go; some of the comprehensives are excellent too.

The nearest private schools are very academic, they don't take any kids who are below grammar level, and they give decent scholarships and bursaries to quite a few children.

Farmers wouldn’t be cash poor if people were prepared to pay an appropriate amount for their produce, in line with actual production costs and with the same profit margin as other businesses.

Take the stranglehold of the supermarkets away and we might be some way to redressing the balance.

Looking figures up it appears the average production cost per litre of milk is 46p. Sainsbury’s sell it to us for 64p per litre after they’ve factored in transport and staffing costs in their supermarkets. And they won’t be making a loss.

Most people can't afford to. I buy my meat at the butchers, my veg from a local greengrocer and my bread from a local bakery but it is significantly more expensive than buying from the supermarket and a significant number of families simply wouldn't be able to afford it.

Should the farmers be subsidising you though?

Obviously being unable to afford food is tough, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but some people commenting here really do seem to think they’re entitled to cheap food at the expense of the food producers.

Asset Rich But Cash Poor means just that. They cannot ‘write a cheque to get out of difficulties’ if there’s a poor harvest, flooding or a harsh winter. Yet somehow they don’t count as ‘working people’.

But when the farms are sold off and farm-to-fork becomes a single production line owned by the same retail company, what are you going to do when they up their prices because they no longer have independent farmers to squeeze?

Some people are clueless on how important farms are to us in the UK.

Suggestions of just selling the farm and living off the proceeds. Sell to whom? Do you really want our beautiful farms to be sold to a Russian buyer or a Chinese billionaire?

What do you think will happen to the quality of our food?

FGS. Some on this thread are nuts

It might cost less in the short term but long term it will certainly cost more, as new houses need to be built, added pressure on healthcare, on schools, on roads, in fact all infrastructure. Every year we are adding a sizable town with no corresponding infrastructure structure- it’s not sustainable. There are also considerations like English lessons, producing official documentation in non- English formats, interpreters etc that need to be considered.

The cost of disruption to local communities etc. is it disrupting tourism for example where several hotels are used for immigrants, diversion of funds away from local people/school children. Increased building on school land, on green belt reducing access to countryside. Are leisure facilities over subscribed etc? And no it wasn’t mentioned in the Budget but it certainly heavily feeds into many aspects covered by the Budget.

Many European countries have a mix of state/private healthcare. Our private healthcare system is only half hearted. No private A&E/urgent care for example. Rather than raising Ni it would have been better to insist all companies with over say 50 employees had to provide private health insurance cover.

I wouldn't, in theory, be affected because I already rarely shop at supermarkets.

It costs me £20 to buy a chicken at my local butcher. Most families couldn't afford that. I have no idea what the solution is but I don't think it is nearly as straightforward as people just not being "prepared" to pay more. Many - most, in fact! - simply can't afford to.

Apologies if already posted but good thread on this fro. Dan Neidle who is a tax expert x.com/danneidle/status/1851956384167776598?s=61&t=DU5CikF859yhVyRrgoKH2g

Thats a good explanation. It's highlights what some posters on this thread have been saying about the numbers of farms that might be affected.

I don't disagree,but I'd not say it out loud ,
I wouldn't mind if it was all children and families coming,but if it's all men ,and they are fleeing to safety in UK ,where are their old and vulnerable and wives and elderly,if it's not safe for the men to stay in their home country,it's not safe for women and children to stay there either.
I don't think any of the politicians knows how to tackle it really

Get him to leave you the house/farm in trust asap

Tbh, for the most part it doesn’t really matter who is coming, our country simply cannot cope with the sheer numbers, especially when they need high levels of support with language and integration if they have come from very different cultures, we simply cannot afford it on any level. But you’re right, hardly any politician wants to touch the issue in any meaningful way.

People can’t afford to spend more because housing costs have become insane. That’s mainly due to pressure on supply, not enough houses to go round.

If we lose farmland we may find the same happening to food, as homegrown availability drops we import more and it becomes a seller’s market and food prices rise.

According to the ONS in 1957 households spent 33% of their income on food and 9% on housing, by 2018 those figures were 16% and 18%. In 2018 our population was around 66 million, it’s now 69 million so those at the bottom end of the income scale will be hardest squeezed.

Ask someone to double their food bills now and they’ll think you’re having a laugh! But costs to farmers haven’t dropped by 50%. That’s one reason why it was easier for farmers to afford to expand back in the post war years, land wasn’t so insanely expensive as with a population of about 50 million in 1950 there wasn’t the need for so many houses as there is now and land - and house - prices weren’t so high.

Solution? I don’t have one. But taking farms away from farmers through punitive taxation isn’t ever going to be the right answer.

At least the last government sort of tried to tackle it ,.I think it's all tied up with racism ..no one wants to be racist..I certainly don't ,and it's confusing The overlap ,like how to tackle it ,and not be seen to be racist..
But that might be just me ,in my head ,the autism muddles things sometimes