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.

Good explanation. Farmers always need the equity in the farm to borrow to buy stock, feed, equipment, insurance, cover for a bad year.

Is truly sad to see some of the snide, misinformed posts.

OP: My heart goes out to your Grandfather; know exactly how he feels.

Rachael Reeves doesn’t understand farming that much is obvious.

@Spatulation so sorry. The ignorance on this thread is appalling.

Farmers are so important and work so hard for very little financial gain.

Yeh you’re too rich OP - you can sell it and buy a smaller farm to pay the tax, then your kids can sell that to buy a smaller farm and pay tax, their kids can sell that and buy an even smaller farm to pay tax and then eventually future generations can be farm hands.

Who do you think you are aristocracy that gets to build on their wealth with every generation ?

I feel for you OP, it’s very unfair. You should be able to protect family’s wealth. I invision each generation of my family being more secure and more stable not less.

I don't think most people understand the farming community and how it works. Very few are profitable though they are classed high value assets. They're only high value when sold but don't usually generate high incomes. Most farmers are squeezed and have been even more so since brexit as much of the agricultural funding came from the EU. I'm not a farmer btw, I just have an interest in the field due to some work I did a while back.

My family are from a rural area not in the UK. Suicides amongst farmers is pretty high and shouldn’t be so easily dismissed, it’s awful. Many end up loaded with debt, one really bad year can fuck you for several. It is not easy running a farm and many people feel a deep connection to the land.

OP you may just have to sell a parcel of land. It’s deeply upsetting and a stupid policy.

You just end up with corporates moving in who can raise that kind of money and pushing smaller farms out of business.

The economics of running a farm are not understood well by non farmers (margins are often tight) and it’s a 24 hour job. I don’t have a farm but I really hope this is repealed.

OP, please try and not have your father panic. There are options, it may be worth him gifting to next generation ASAP to start 7 year clock ticking - or if married and your mum is younger then gift to her and then she gift down. Also, the IHT would be payable in 10 annual instalments, which may ease the initial pain a little and mean the farm could be kept with some careful financial planning.

It’s a business and often a family trade and home.

Can someone explain the thread title and how it connects to the actual thread pls? Why would OPs dad ‘need’ to die in April…?

Also, I suspect farms will drop in value now they aren’t a good way to shelter from IHT, which will help a little on the tax bill for those true farmers who just want to retain their farm and pass to the next generation.
It’s a short sighted plan from the government, we will lose more food security which is not what we want with the world as it is. Better to have introduced a limit on APR for those in contract farm arrangements. Bring the price of farmland back down and into the hands of real farmers, not rich trying to shelter their wealth from tax.

@Spatulation i’m so sorry to read this.I do hope someone with expert estate planning and tax knowledge comes along with advice beyond ‘just sign it all over’ because at 83 the reality is choices are limited sadly.

It really does look like Labour is using another sledgehammer to crack a nut here and listening to the budget I did wonder why this was such a specific measure. If there is a suspicion that land is being falsely registered as a working farm to avoid being taxed properly then the government needs to put measures in place to stop that. It strikes me as an ill-thought measure to either appear to be ‘getting tough’ with ‘the rich’ or trying to flush out land which should be being used for housing. Either way, it is clumsy at best, and devastating to food security in this country at worst.

I’m no Clarkson fan (having been in the Car Industry in a previous life), but I will acknowledge that he has done more single-handedly to raise the issues about the realities and economics of farming in the UK than just about anyone lately. let’s hope he speaks out on this issue because the suicide statistics amongst farmers even before this measure was announced speak for themselves. If we have learned nothing from losing energy independence by letting Russia dictate what we pay, we need to all collectively wake up now about food security. Yes, land can be sold to make way for housing or solar farms, but where then are we growing the crops needed for basic foods?

We can’t have it all ways - nimbyism cannot live with the need for affordable homes, Objection to building Nuclear power stations cannot live with the need to maintain energy security and constantly importing food cannot live with the environmental impact and our responsibility to it.

I’m bout as left wing as they come and can see why it’s so important that farmers can inherit family farms… it doesn’t take a genius?

People with the knowledge, skills, and understanding of the land are absolutely essential to our economy and food security. Farmers aren’t making enormous profits.

I am sorry you are so upset. Encourage your father to get some advice. Maybe he can pass over the farm now and avoid the penalties. You need some guidance and some space to consider your options.

I think this policy is a mistake. They could clamp down on the exploitation of loop holes without punishing everyone.

I’m shocked at this tax - I live in SW Scotland -not many (any) farmers I know are rolling in it , some areas of land are better quality than others but nearly all farms are worth over a million -usually 1 to 2 million.
and the sad things is the companies who buy up farms are largely foreign investment firms. So you are kicking out experienced farmers to hand the land to Chinese millionaires who then do whatever is most financially gainful -probably trees where we are.

i think RR will roll back on this.

Small farms really struggle, and there's a massive problem if in each generation the farm somehow has to fund the cost of this tax. A very low, 1-2% return on investment can't fund a 40% tax in every generation, obviously, and so this is a plan to destroy traditional family farms.

I really hope you find a way to plan around this and keep your farm going OP.

So many farmers voting Brexit, so may farmers making fortunes.

I do understand it's difficult but if you will owe that much then your family is bloody loaded, when you sell.

I’m so
sorry OP. This is incredibly short sighted of the government. Farming is so important. Hopefully people will campaign and they will repeal this. Hug your Dad xx

I understand the point you are making and exactly how devastating this will be for the UK.

I'm really sorry for you and the other farmers facing tbe worry of this. Maybe people will get it when Jeremy Clarkson covers it.

I know others will disagree but I thought this budget was bloody brilliant - this was the one measure I didn't agree with.

Farmers have already been hit hard by the double whammy of losing subsidies through Brexit and supermarkets driving down prices.

They are so essential to food security it could cause some real problems.

I'm sorry OP - but take heart as I don't think this will be as bad as it first seems.

For example on a £6m farm the tax due would be £500,000 not £1m (I think) and I'm sure there will be other estate planning things that can be put in place that will minimise inheritance tax such as early transfer of ownership and putting assets into trust.

However, I can understand why it probably feels very raw for your dad at the moment and must be a shock.

I hope you can get some good tax planning advice so it doesn't seem so bleak.

I'm sorry, OP, this is either an outstandingly stupid or deliberately undermining policy by Labour who want there to be fewer family farms for whatever daft or sinister reason of their own.

Either way, the effect is to kill off a good chunk of family farms and have the land fall into the hands of God knows whom with which to do God knows what.

Don't despair, I can see this being rolled back once enough people bang on RR's door to inform her of the bleeding obvious.

The bovine idiocy on display on this thread is really something. So many people who can't see past their misplaced envy to their own self-interest, that of their children and their country overall.

Because ultimately they're right, you would be fine if you sold the farm and walked away with the land value. You could use that wealth to insulate you from a lot of the food instability and general incompetence that is coming. The people who would be most negatively impacted by you having to sell the farm are the people sneering at you for wanting to keep it!

All those suggesting lifetime gifts have clearly never thought of capital gains tax. If you hand over assets during your lifetime, you get charged CGT. This is why most farmers wait until death so that they can use the IHT exemption which was available until yesterday.

We face a similar prospect to the OP with a slightly smaller farm but unfortunately most of the land we farm is in the sole ownership of a mother who now has dementia and does not have capacity to make decisions around her land holdings. Her attornies under her LPA are her children who cannot gift her assets to themselves as it breaches the rules surrounding acting as attornies.

Don't believe the Labour lie about not putting up taxes on working people. Few work harder than farmers.

The informed public understands OP. This measure is a disgrace.

You’re disgraceful talking like this.

There are ways of phrasing your frustration which don’t make it sound like you want your parents to die sooner rather than later which is pretty fucking offensive to those of us who are losing parents now and would rather have them than all the money in the world.

Have a look at yourself.

I’m so sorry OP, I can’t imagine the sorrow you must be feeling, along with the worry that your dad will do something stupid.

The whole situation is bloody shit and designed by someone who clearly knows nothing about farming or food security. You’ve had some horrible responses on here. I hope you remember this when you see threads complaining about food shortages and the insane price increases.

Oh, OP, I am so so sorry. Ignore all the idiots posting based on nothing more than envy. Labour have shown themselves to be monumentally stupid. How dare Keir sit there on his high horse (in his free clothes and specs) and treat farmers this way? Apparently, he doesn’t consider farmers to be working people. Every farmer I have ever met works far harder than Keir and his ilk ever have.

The sad fact is that the truly mega-wealthy estates will remain exempt because they are tied up in trusts. This will hit the hard working middle just like always. Please look into financial advice asap - there are often ways around this sort of thing. A trust setup might potentially work for your family, although obviously there are legal fees involved plus a % of the value of the property to be put into the trust needs to be paid when the trust is set up. This may not be financially possible for you but worth getting advice sooner rather than later.

Thinking you you and your family and everyone similarly affected by Labour and the politics of envy.

Her father is considering suicide, you read the f ing room