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.

It’s targeted at people trying to avoid tax. I don’t support the farmers but might review my position if there is evidence it impacts a disproportionate number of others and that the ameliorations eg payment of tax over time aren’t sufficient.

Without evidence a lot of the arguments I’ve heard appear to be about the principle of not wanting to pay more tax and clearly no-one ever wants to lose something that has benefited them. If it really is about the impact on farming then Id like to hear farmers disassociate themselves from those who are openly using it as a tax dodge. If there is a genuinely negative impact on normal farmers then I would be sympathetic to a compromise that resulted in people Jeremy Clarkson who is on the record as saying he’s bought farmland as a tax dodge and James Dyson etc paying far more so that the tax relief apply more narrowly to the people intended to benefit from it.

No they can’t. If the farmer is still living in the farmhouse then the gift rules don’t work. Few will be able to afford to buy a property off farm to move out into.

And yet so many have done in the past ..

Thanks for saying this before I could. There’s an awful lot of misinformation on this thread about how IHT works and how farming works. Much of that is due to poor media reporting, which really isn’t helping.

And many cannot.

These are very very unlikely to be people on 3 mil farms.

So they won't pay iht anyway.

@Whoyergonnacall my dad would fit into that category. He’s a life long farmer, he thinks the rules should be changed to those who derive more than 80% of their income from the farm they own/live on. He’s chilled about bankers/investors having to pay, and at the other end people who’ve been using the exemption as a bonus on their fields they have for horses or pet goats.

The fact that land prices have gone up only makes someone rich if they sell. No different to house prices going up. £3m doesn’t get you much of a farm at todays prices, especially when you also factor in the cost of the farm buildings, farmhouse, animals, crops in the ground, machinery etc. At today’s land prices a majority of proper farms (not hobby ones or small holdings) will be worth over £3m but will make less profit than an average salary.

Absolutely. If they wanted to crack down on tax avoidance there are definitely more nuanced ways they could have done it. As someone who understands IHT and has audited farms, I know this policy will definitely hit the average family farm, which will not make enough profit to pay off IHT even at a reduced rate over 10 years.

Not true. Farmers voted broadly in line with the test of the population. Slightly in favour, and varied by region.

80% did not vote for Brexit.

I believe inheritance tax should be paid for the house and yard but not for the rest of the property. Labour voter.

No I dont support them at all

This☝️
A lot of the farmers are tennant farmers round here who'd probably love to be asset rich....but that's a different problem.
I think people are upsetting a lot of farmers for the few farmers/land owners who it will effect.

There hasn't been a Ministry of Agriculture since 2002...

@Vynalbob

Yes I feel for the tenant farmers in all this. I hope this gives them a chance of their own land. Assume their rich landlords will probably put their rents up again though.

This sounds sensible

Absolutely agree, then when we are completely reliant on imports the prices will double or treble. We’ve learnt nothing from the fuel prices fiasco! Whoever thought being dependent on Russian gas was a good idea, maybe ought to think again as we may be at war with them next week!!!!

Then you’re a fool!

I didn't explain this well my apologies. The supermarkets aren't destroying the crop but because they don't buy it or all of it then it gets ploughed in or composted on farm. Sometimes there are promises to take a certain amount and sometimes they do not take it all. No one takes that produce and there is often no access to a market that will take it. The short shelf life of fresh food is part of the issue we need a better food system with proper alternatives to market that are flexible enough to cope with the needs of the industry to get crops into proper storage and out to the people who can use it or at the very least to people who need it. There are some places that do this but they are few and far between and as usual close to urban centres and regions of higher population.

You can categorically say what you like from your own experience, we all speak from our experience and I respect your opinion. I've worked from Somerset to Cambridgeshire, from Hampshire to Yorkshire and can catorgorically state loads of people I worked for are not well off by any means but they live on amazingly high priced land. It doesn't matter which of us is right because in truth neither of us has the edge on that, the fact remains some farmers do OK a few do really well and some struggle to varying degrees. This has little to nothing to do with land values, they are what they are due to a tax loophole that could have been foreseen and should have been closed way before the rot set in.

The sad fact is more people will be affected by this policy who are not Mr Dyson and Mr Clarkson than we realise. And the real shame of it is every single person living in the UK will be affected by the ramifications of this policy because of the sensitive nature of this industry. There is no getting away from that whatever we discuss, whatever our opinions are, I personally wish it was not so but here we are.

And no reason why there can’t be another

What you say may be a good idea in principle but don’t see the point of the ‘get people like Dyson’ motive.

Dyson must have made millions for the country. He does not ‘owe’ more just because it is so annoying that he is successful and rich.

I support the farmers though I don’t come from the farming community.
My reasons?

1. Besides food production, farmers preserve the countryside.
2. Pay within agriculture is low and you can’t pay your bills with 2lb of arable earth
3. Given the Zero carbon Agenda, importing food would add a massive carbon footprint to our country.

it’s vindictive, destructive and precisely what you’d expect off a chancellor who states she’s an economist when she never was. Learn people Labour are Liars.

The fact that land prices have gone up only makes someone rich if they sell

Does anyone know what happens at the point of sale of a farm? What taxes would there be then?

It's a minority of farms above this price. All the statistics say it.