UK Farmers

[SunQueen24]

Can someone please explain to me what today is all about?

There was an interview* floating around online a few days ago with John McTernan, a former Labour strategist.

“We can do to the farmers what Thatcher did to the miners. It’s an industry we could do without. We don’t need small farmers.”

I have no idea whether his views are quietly shared by the current party, but it was nevertheless a very unsettling thing to hear.

*I think it was GB News, please don’t judge me 😂

Madness. Why do people become so vengeful like this

It's also going against the tide of needing food security and local produce

I value that, I don't want Labour to wreck it

people who don't understand tax planning - any generational farm, just needs to hand the farm on 7 years before they die - no IHT issues.......... and you can see when idiots like Farage and Clarkson (who literally bought is farm originally to avoid tax) they're just beating a fake drum.....

Farage - who'se done more damage to UK farming than any other individual.

It seems this will impact on 70,000 of the 209,000 farms in the country.

Take out all the small tax dodge farms at the bottom that aren't really viable farms and I bet that is getting somewhere near most normal family farms operating currently will be impacted

How will that work with reservation of benefit which will be the case for most farms handing it over before death.

Do YOU know anything about IHT and tax planning?

I found this article explains it well taxjustice.uk/blog/super-rich-attacking-plans-close-agricultural-tax-breaks/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGpmEhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHazA_OuhZMSZCvjzP4zlIhTpWvX7sLqm93opwqmTaeU-ONcpdr1T5AjRFQ_aem_hdYcg9X9GeVsj1Cn1iAmKQ

Farmers absolutely do work into their 80s, my grandad worked until 83 until he became bed bound. Farmers (the ones actually farming not necessarily landowners) have the most incredible work ethic, it’s a culture of its own.

Have you read any of thread up to this point?

clearly like most of the farmers I know they retire off the farm and the next generation takes over and runs the farm.....

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dan-neidle-labour-put-up-the-wrong-taxes/id1703785141?i=1000677192596

of course not

@scrowy, what does 'small tax dodge farms' mean? All the tax dodging is being done by big businesses/ very wealthy people buying up very large parts of the countryside.

I imagine Jeremy Clarkson is one of the dodgers. He seems the type.

For most farming isn't just job you retire from. Most just carry on till their health means that they can't do it anymore. It's everything to them. The land, their land, which had often been in their family for generations, means everything, it's kind of ingrained.

In that case the net value of the estate is even less. IHT is paid on the net value of the estate. Not sure how this changes the point I made, which is that if someone inherits a 300 acre farm they won’t have to pay the rent you’re paying. And have you ever stopped to think why you can’t afford to buy? Might it have something to do with millionaires and billionaires buying up farmland to avoid IHT and driving up the prices?

Of course he is!

Ok - if we take Clarkson as an example- I doubt his kids will want to continue farming- so it's likely it would be sold off- in that case - inheritance tax should be paid and in full. Why should it not be applicable ? and yet is applicable to jim smith whose family say sell off his hotel ( as an example) and not at a beneficial rate that farmers get.

My own personal view is that if the family continue to own and farm then really it makes more sense to split the ownership up at some point in your 60s - I realise as others have said 'that isn't done' - well traditions sometimes need to be looked at if they are illogical . Another option would be farmers who continue to farm ( not just buy to land hoard) pay an annual land tax based on acreage , rather than any IHT -

Yes or a taper relief so that if it continues as a farm IHT is reduced. What I take issue with is the farmers selling farmland in droves for housing - it doesn’t seem justified that they avoid IHT on the basis it’s a farm to then get a massive windfall from a commercial sale.

The number of farmers who will lose out is minuscule. The number of millionaires who will now pay more tax is higher.

So OP starts a thread pleading ignorance to bait arguments knowing funn well what its all about. Isnt that a bit frowned upon?

What’s led you to that conclusion?

Bumping this as it's so true

We are blindly stumbling in to handing over our countryside to massive conglomerate farms and overseas investors who will not have UK food security as a priority
Short term profits over long term planning
Good arable land turned into carbon capture fields

But hey - we can just import our food - who needs farmers anyway

Well that’s a really interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing.

Interestingly the article above states the exact opposite:-

Guy Singh-Watson,

“Don’t be fooled”, he writes, “those who are pushing the hardest against this change to inheritance tax… don’t represent farmers.”
“They represent the super-rich who don’t want to contribute their fair due, and are simply buying up our country to keep more money and assets for themselves.”

“Don’t be fooled”, he writes, “those who are pushing the hardest against this change to inheritance tax… don’t represent farmers.”

So the only people who are objecting to this tax are the super-rich?
Was everyone on the protest today super rich? Presumably so as according to Guy Singh-Watson ordinary farmers don’t care about it.