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.

Like many people ALREADY have to sell their family home to pay inheritance tax.

Sell a percentage of it.

Many farmers do in a pinch.

You are massively better off than most.

I'm so sorry OP - really hoping there's support for farming families who have fed us and our ancestors for generations. Totally understand your attention grabbing post - hopefully this issue gets the focus it needs to get resolved. Farmers seem to get screwed over all the time whilst working flat out :(

It’s the fact that the Government and people on this thread can’t see the bigger picture

Cant see the negative impact that this policy will have on them personally, yet are trying to argue you can just slice a bit of farm off and continue as normal

The massive difference being that selling most people's family homes won't also make them unemployed., and very few people will be selling a family home that they live in to pay inheritance tax, and making themselves homeless.

personally this was such a pointless thing to try to implement tax wise, because people aren’t stupid and they’ll find ways around it, just like you are. What happens then with that black hole.

i for one, would hate to see farm land being sold off to housing developers and needs to be prevented. It’s not your fault land is very lucrative, it’s totally a way of life and needs protecting. Unless you are living in mansion and labelling it as farm.

But on selling your dead relatives home to pay inheritance tax, do you as a family all become unemployed as well, do you all lose your jobs?

Do you not see the difference

Not only that. The whole race to the bottom mentality. Envy anyone who live above minimum wage. I am not a big fans of the Americans but what they do so much better than us, is celebrating success, not racing to the bottom.

I'm so sorry your family I'd facing this OP. I hope your government sees sense. UK currently only produces around 60% of its own food needs, so forcing local farmers out of business is crazy - its not like the world is getting more peaceful and secure. The land will either go to property developers or multi-national corporations and everyone is ok with that? I'd think the UK government would prioritise increasing food security, not actively trying to make it worse.

This is absolutely disgusting.

Farmers near here sell off parts of their land if they need money - it's not like the lot has to be sold.
My friend came from a beautiful ''Family Seat'' in one of the ''Hunting shires'' their beautiful house with land had to be sold for ''Death Duties'' back in the late 60's or 70's.

I do understand that you and you’re family are devastated op but it is only larger farmers who will be in this position and as someone who farms on a very small farm this new policy will hopefully cause land prices to drop and enable more new entrants to the industry and some of us that are very small farmer to expand a bit and if land prices drop even fewer will fall in the inheritance tax bracket.

This! I think of all the government grants available to farmers! Not that long ago the EU were paying them not to grow stuff to avoid surpluses!
Farmland can only be used as farmland, don't you think they sell fields to developers in a heartbeat if they can!

DH left school at 16 and has worked on the farm since then, he is now 60. Our DS (26) started working on the farm at 19. Both work 100+ hours at week. FIL in his 80's and owns everything, husband and son paid a pittance but don't worry, one day it will be yours. We own nothing, not the land, not the house we live in. We are not the only farmers in this situation.

No chance of doing any planning to avoid the shitstorm we face as FIL has been diagnosed with Dementia so wouldn't be judged to of sound mind.

I think that the government should have applied IHT to acreage not value to ensure that small family farms (500 acres and less) were protected whilst the likes of James Dyson were targeted.

Selling off a percentage won't leave them unemployed.

I understand OP, though not in the UK. I'm a newbie to country life.The 50 acres behind my place has a herd of cows. Both adults have other jobs to pay the bills. When we had a flood a couple of years ago they were on the local fb page asking for someone higher up to take their cattle. Eventually the cows took matters into their own hands ( hooves) and broke the gate and ran down the street. Every one was in shock the next day, the noise!, they ate my flowers! my front path is now covered in massive divots! Shortly after a lovely person with enough space ( sadly I don't) took them in. It's times like that you realise farming is bloody hard work and if they all just chucked it in we'd be well and truly fucked.

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%.

Whilst living rent free in a huge detached house with land, plenty of space for storage and children, no neighbours pissing them off with nothing but a fence between you, no parking wars with the neighbours on the street, driving around in 4x4s they didn't buy out of their wages because it's a business expense, enough room to house any number of pets they may want to keep, for free, even big ones like horses or massive dogs. All that has value.

Add that value (if they had to rent/buy it) to their wages and I'm willing to bet it comes in at far far more than minimum wage. Then there's the job satisfaction of doing something you love, no boss breathing down your neck all the time etc and living in beautiful countryside. I'm sure it can be very hard at times. So are most jobs, even those that don't pay well like actual minimum wage jobs.

I’m a farm vet and I have deep concerns about this too OP. Whilst to many it will seem fair enough, it will mean further loss of the family farm. We already are seeing that and farms owned by huge companies instead who don’t have a clue. Animal welfare suffers massively when you don’t have people who have been farming for their whole life and all the knowledge that brings farming them, just a big company looking at profit margins. Then we end up importing even more food where the animal welfare is undoubtedly a lot worse than when it is farmed in the UK where we have stricter animal welfare laws (for good reason!)

This is horrendous for farming and the whole economy. Remember you need a farmer every eight hours of your life.

Labour tax grab will come up short sighted in the long term. Remember those businesses may not make huge taxable profits. But they do buy a lot of goods from other businesses.Keeping lots of people in work. With all the taxation on business today with increased MW and NI contributions we better all put our tin hats on for a nasty recession in the next five years.

The increase in MW and NI will stoke inflation too with those on MW getting poorer as the inflation bites and tax thresholds frozen.
Also more people are now being paid minimum wage/ and paying tax as those near the bottom are falling into this category as their wage doesn’t increase inline. I don’t think this is great for success and drive as people feel well if I’m only worth the minimum. I may as well only do the minimum.

OP I hope your father is okay and there is a way to navigate it. Difficult decisions ahead.

Agreed. Without farmers where would we be? It's disgusting that the people who are basically keeping the world running are going thru this.

I know many many farmers and not one of them I know has any children in private education.
Very few farmers are cash rich, any wealth is tied up in the ownership of the farm and land. Although many will think this is debatable, in my opinion farmers work harder than most of the general population, at certain times of year working 20+ hour days, in all weathers. In return for this, many farmers struggle to even break even. However farming is not just a job, it is a livelihood, if you aren’t born into farming then it is very difficult to understand what it means to farmers to carry on this livelihood through generations, for many it is all they know and the selling of the farm is the end of the world as they know, leaving them bereft. It isn’t about the money, it’s about the inability to carry on the work the previous generations have built up, in the place and home that has been in their family for many generations.

Yes, and what’s worrying is that these people are allowed to vote. They can’t see beyond their jealousy towards OP’s family the implications of this budget measure. It will lead to a reduction in farms and greater reliance on produce imports from overseas. Who will buy up the land the farming community has to sell off? The super rich. What will happen to it? It will probably end up being built on.

Instead of taxing normal people including hard working farming families, this government needs to tax the wealth of the super rich. Which they haven’t done in this budget.

Some of the reasponses to the OP are horrible but typical of the sort of goady responses you see on here all to often these days.

Don’t worry OP, if this government carry on as they are then they will only be in power another 4-5 years and then hopefully whoever takes over will reverse this stupid policy.

I second the poster who recommended your parents take legal and tax planning advice. It may be slightly more complicated as time is not on their side due to their age but there are ways to help mitigate the burden and potentially some other reliefs that could be available (depending on how the farm is held etc).

Yes horrible thread title for a horrible situation the OP is in. When did you all get so sensitive?

Hoarded wealth? Have you thought that there may be generations that have worked on this farm? Why should effort and hard work and ambition be punished because some lazy arses do fuck all and expect everything?