To support UK Farmers

[TheHateIsNotGood]

And due to KS's inability to face them in Wales today they are now thinking of going on strike. Because the govt are being too stubborn to reconsider how they apply IHT on working family farms. By all means close the loophole that allows the 'landed gentry' to take advantage of the agricultural exception but not with so blunt an instrument.

I was hoping to add a post to an existing thread but there isn't one despite it being headline news today.

The land won't disappear will it?

There's grants on solar farms as there are on trees, re wilding here.

I've seen the results of rewilding in our village and roundabout. Forget right to roam. The brambles will shred your clothes, the nettles sting you. It becomes a hostile environment for mammals human and others. Trees lose branches and are left where they fall. There's zero management of the woodlands.

It won't disappear, no, but there's a good chance it won't be used to produce food.

The way Russia is ramping up the Ukraine will have to do a deal. The bread basket of Europe will be under Russian control. I wouldn't like to see our food security eroded further.

Both my grandparents grew food during the war, one in his small back garden, the other had a share in a field.

The population was around 45 million then. I believe it's 68 million now.

We are overly dependent on imports.

Not to mention the massive wildfire risk that unmanaged woodlands create!

''The assets are only worth anything if they are sold. There is no cash on the bank. The assets are not liquid.
If they are sold they will not be sold to other farmers - no farmers have the money!!''

You really need to make your mind up on whether the farm assets have value or not. You were telling me only yesterday that these same assets were so valuable they would push even small farms over the £3m threshold.

You speak of being sold to big business. You may be correct there, and this is something the government needs to address, especially with regard to what is put on the land. But why aren't you out berating the farmers who have taken the devils dollar at inflated prices? Why didn't they sell to a young farmer starting out and give him the chance to produce for the nation?

Quite simply these farmers did exactly as most of us would, took the most money. The same applies to the vast majority of the farmers complaining today. Good enough offer and off they would go too.

@ParkAndRider
Can the farm not be gifted to the offspring 7 years before death of the current owner?

@TankFlyBossW4lk

The trouble is you don't know when you're going to die.
If you gift it on then you can't benefit from the farm in anyway after that. So you can't pass it on and remain living in the farmhouse for example. Even if the person you pass it on to is also living there.

And what if people don't die in the right order. Farming is considered to be the most dangerous profession in the UK now. What if the oldest generation pass it on and the younger generation die first?

Well all your friends are doing is making housing more expensive for the ordinary people. Farmers are actually providing food for the nation. I know which I'd prefer to tax out of business.

Yes I do support all businesses being exempt from IHT. I think IHT is a short term benefit for the government with a long term negative impact on the country's productivity.

Thank you for explaining this.

It looks like the government have got this badly wrong, whether by accident or not.

75% of farms facing this situation is grave.

I feel like they should look at the system in places with better food security. In France they have a system where tax relief only applies where farms are certified. Why couldn’t we do similar here? Those that are certified food producers (maybe where the primary use of the land in the estate is crop production/animal for rearing) get the relief. Those that are not don’t. Maybe if enough people mooted that as an alternative (& also suggested that land attached to stately homes should only get relief under very limited circumstances) you’d end up with more tax in a way that protects & even encourages food production.

So the Farmer near me who a few weeks ago boasted of making over 300k pre tax profit from his Dairy herd is lying?

Net profit on milk is over 1p per litre a 200 cow herd - about average size - would produce an around of 1.6m litres per year, a net pre tax profit of at least £160k...

Not saying ALL farmers make a fortune and prices fluctuate too but it should also be remembered that Farmers get subsidies that no other businesses get, its £ billions per year.

However, Reeves plans don't take into account that the very rich can still buy up farms and woodland and still get a massive IHT break.

I think she should go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan that removes tax breaks for the v wealthy buying up land.

It is £1M specifically plus the usual £1M IHT allowance and then there is the usual married couples’ allowance.

It was Covid year when excess deaths were generally high.

oh my god spoken like a true townie!!!

Brambles and nettles!!!

Hostile environment??? fuggin 'ell!!! i ve heard it all now, well no you were beaten by the "fire risk" comment.

Most mixed woodland isn't managed at all.

no I don’t support the farmers or anyone else who thinks they are magically exempt from paying taxes

I definitely wouldn’t trust a farmer boasting about profit. There’s yields and then there’s pub yields.

And there are no more subsidies for farmers in England. RR removed those too.

Not a notable problem in the UK thus far

Nope the profit on milk supports his figures.... just because the facts don't support your argument, doesn't make it wrong.

Like i hinted, Dairy isn't all farming.

Subsidies for farmers are still very much alive and kicking, Reeves has not altered any of them, they are the same ones the Tories introduced "Public good" instead of acreage/production.

So much for food supply?

Thank you very much, @ImNunTheWiser , for your data of yesterday evening. So if that 117/462 was the number of farms that would have lost out based only on APR we don’t know the true scope ofcthe problem.

This does lead to a new question. Britain is said to be a nation of shopkeepers. Small family businesses are caught up in the same problem. In Treasury’s projection only ‘a majority’ of family businesses will not feel the heatfrom this tax change - it is a worse projection than for farmers.

Why are farmers not making common cause with small family business owners?

I dont agree with inheritance tax generally but rather selfishly I can't help thinking that if Labour back down, they need to find a way to raise the money they were expecting from this so who will fund that black hole? Will we all be taxed more? Or will services be cut?

I suppose to be fair SFI and CS grants counld
be considered subsidies but they aren’t money for nothing anymore in the traditional sense of a farming subsidy.

Its still £ billions for not doing very much at all.

Maybe if they don't want to pay IHT, perhaps a trade off would be the gradual removal of these payments?

Which has worked very well in other parts of the world

I don't mind as long as the return on that subsidy is greater

Traditionally it's working people who front the black holes, isn't it, one way or another. We've got used to the Tories, who always did.

I see that the supermarkets are also wailing this morning. Well, how about lower profits, instead of scaremongering about job cuts? That's a thought!