To ask why you support the farmers, regarding inheritance tax?

[WheresFluffy]

Just that, really.
I'm interested to know why people support, or not, the farmers regarding the inheritance tax changes.

YABU - it's been done to death
YANBU - learning why people believe things is important.

I think there should be differences in these rules between a farm that produces food in some way - either animals or crops - I think they should have support

I think this is especially important if it has been a working farm owned by the same family for generations

And the ones that are just land owned by XYZ as a way of collecting land assets then I don't think they should be supported in the same way

I don't have any experience of farming in this country but I have good friends who have a dairy farm, that also grows apples in the orchards, in Ontario, Canada. This is a family farm and all the generations live in the farm in different houses. Obviously Canada has much more land than the UK but my friends aren't rich by any description but live in a lovely location

That got cut in this budget too!

lol people can see edits so if you have something to say at least stick with it

The morning radio rounds have been dire from Labour

There’s a lot of frothing on here but actually there are ways to get around paying this tax, and really it has been put in place to protect the smaller farming communities. Most farmers round here are incandescent with rage but honestly they are very well off and so presume that’s why. They also hate labour with a vengeance so anything they do will cause a massive uproar.

Do people realise that people who are buying land as an IHT dodge are still farming it? Or rather they are renting it out to be farmed by others? Sometimes on very long leases of 20 years. So we can’t just make a rule that “if the land is used for farming don’t tax it but tax people like James Dyson” . It doesn’t work like that.

Again with the “very well off”.
Most farmers are not very well off.

Labour puts no value on farming so why on earth should farmers support them? Labour currently seem to be making decisions that will risk food security, which seems a wilfully ignorant and short sighted thing to do.

Like I said there are ways to get round this tax so lots of unnecessary frothing.

So far I’ve only really seen “up to £3m you’re fine, what are you worrying about”

Can you outline other ways please?

A Trust. Pass it on now and live for seven years. I’m pretty sure a tax lawyer could come up with more.

I think it’s VERY short sighted it’ll just kill off farming and decimate the food supply chain

Yes that’s something they can do, but short term this is a very precarious situation.
Over a third of farmers are over retirement age, typically farms and responsibilities aren’t fully handed to the next generation until an elderly farmer literally cannot do it. Many will not live for 7 years.

So this really does hit the elderly farmer and that food security and not much else. Labour have got this very wrong

I struggle to comment on this without wanting to rant and sound chaotic and angry about people that don't understand farming, especially after reading some of the stuff posted by i assume people somewhat jealous that generational "wealth" is a thing.

I'm not a farmer, nore am i married to a farmer. None of my family are farmers. But i grew up with my horses kept on a beef farm, went to Agricultural college, worked at an agri uni and plenty of my friends ARE farmers or farmers wives.

I've not spoken to all of them this week, but 4 of them that i have, have been to their accountants and solicitors. They all have relatively small farms but all values well in excess of £3m. None of them can pay additional tax bills, even over 10 years. It would mean 10 years of little to no investment in the farm itself, no buffer for rising costs and even less take home pay. They should absolutely not be expected to reduce farm size by selling up to pay a death tax.

Their were thousands of people at the farmers rally, they asked to hands up who had spoken to advisors, then hands down if unaffected, barely any hands went down. It's going to affect far, far more people than figures quote.

It's laughable to suggest paying it off over 10 years is viable, too. They do not have the spare cash.

4 farmers have already taken their lives since the news.

what's the answer? Well firstly i t don't think anybody should pay tax on death. But realistically they need to have factors such as working farms are exempt - its clear what farms are true working farms from tax returns - this way the people who buy land as a get out of paying tax loop hole will need to pay, but the generational farms can continue doing what they do. If a generational farm ever gets to the point where the next gen don't want to continue & want to sell up then IHT comes in to play at that point.

Being forced to sell up to pay IHT won't mean farm workers or tenant farmers will suddenly be able to afford to buy them up. it won't be those that love farming that will be buying. Or joe bloggs from the local town who's always fancied having a dabble farming buying it - he wouldn't last 5 minutes even if he could afford to purchase in the first place.

I'm not wealthy, i'm not from a wealthy family, but i have zero jealousy/envy of those that have more than me, either from them working for it or inheriting. I never understand people who think "well if i can't have it/wont ever be able to have it/not entitled to it, nobody should be" - and there a LOT of those people on MN.

I would hate to be a farmer, they absolutely make more sacrifices than your average joe UK family will ever have to make.

I'll forever passionately support agriculture.

Yup

Farmers are some of the hardest working amongst us! They are already having to diversify now to survive,Farm shops ,cafes.play barns ,camping and so on. Up at stupid o clock.few (if any ) holidays or even days off.Few people would swap I think .Food prices will increase and we will be the poorer for it.So yes I support JC and all the farmers!

Can someone enlighten me please, why children of farmers have to be farmers, do they not have any choice in the matter? Do all and each one want to? Is there pressure to do so? I even learned here that apparently they also are encouraged to marry other farmers so money remains in family? Sounds like royalty from middle ages? not every business owner's child repeats the same business ad infinitum. It seems like an archaic expectation. Sure farmer kids grow up learning from young age etc but same can be said for others? There's though no expectation for paying no tax when a carpenter passes on that his kid will take family business and go on?

It’s also misleading to try and calculate how many farms are worth +£3m and say those farms are affected. To state the obvious inheritance tax only matters when someone dies. So it’s farms of £3m+ /unmarried farmers with £1.3m where a farmer HASN’T done any sort of inheritance planning that would already alleviate it and either can’t do any planning before the deadline or can do but will be effected by the 7 year taper rule (which drops down a lot after 3 years) AND has a farmer die. How many is that going to be each year? That’s why governments estimates is so much lower than NFU.

Itll get even smaller because this change wil stop farmland being a IHT loophole which will bring down the value of land and so bring some farms out of that valuation bracket.

Farm families tend to have at least one child that wants to take it on, if there's two or three children, it's unlikely that all want to stay in farming. it's an unwritten rule that the siblings that move out of the farm to follow a different path don't generally inherit anything at all upon the death of parents

Is it? I've never heard that before.

I have also been looking at multiple sources for farmers’ views and votes on Brexit. I agree with you

The study in your link doesn't show farmers 'voted overwhelmingly' for Brexit - are you sure you've read it?

Your link says;

Of the study population half stated they voted to leave, 45% stated they voted to remain and 5% stated they did not vote.

As for your claim about 'many, many trusted sources' your link also states;

During the literature review phase it was not possible to identify any source of data on farmer voting choice for Brexit so it cannot be included here to provide a comparison for the study.

In the study population there's quite a variation across the regions e.g.

46.8% of farmers in the South West voted leave, 46.8% of farmers in the South East voted leave and 67% of farmers in Scotland voted leave (although it should be noted that the study didn't use random sampling).

Ok... so children encouraged to farm and marry farmers. siblings that don't want to farm dont inherit, the one who wants to farm inherits the farm and doesn't pay tax. Got that right?
Sounds, archaic to me tbh. I can imagine lots of family tension, pressure and dead dreams as well as bitterness.in the meantime rest of us when we want to pass a business down pay tax. I worry about the unintended consequences wrt food prices etc but at the same time this state of affairs seem unfair and wholly milked by tax dodgers. Vast majority have also shot themselves in the foot with brexit and overseas labour (don't argue, there are scientific studies about the stats) . So overall, inclining to supporting the tax.

How do other countries do by the way? French farmers are famous protestor. Do they pay iht?

A business worth in excess of £3m is not small fry. As for paying additional tax bills, if you knew anything really about agriculture, then you would know that farmers are exceptional at not paying tax. Instead turning every penny of profit into a new piece of equipment to avoid it.

The average family farm is worth around £2.7m, nowhere near £3m. Tax is only ever paid on the amount over the threshold, so even if you are £3.5m, you pay on the £500k, not the whole lot.

This is a fuss about nothing, stirred up by people who are still annoyed that Labour won, landbankers, and tax avoiders.