Jeremy Clarkson is damaging farmers

[Pippyls67]

He should butt out of the inheritance tax debacle. As Victoria Derbyshire reminded him during the London protests, he admitted in news print, when he bought his farm it was to dodge inheritance tax. Now he’s jumping in the back of farmers who probably won’t in actual fact pay very much ( smaller farms than his) for his own mercenary agenda. Farmers need to distance themselves from him and ban him from public events. He’s muddying their message and making them look bad by association. Ps I understand farmers need their farms intact to pass on but tbh we all need to pass on our wealth. I run a business and it’ll be screwed by inheritance tax to some extent. I don’t like it but you have to get on with it. That’s just the way of things isn’t it. Gotta pay for the NHS, schools and essential services from somewhere. Farms will need to sell assets I get it. Yes the largest farms will shrink in size but you just have to diversify to make up the difference if you want the same level of income. That’s what we do in business. Also it will make (potentially) land available for incomers to the industry. Lack of new blood and chances to enter farming have been an issue for many years. This is partly a consequence of even the largest farms being ‘handed down’ intact.

I think its more Labour and Reeves who are "decimating the economy" by their tax hikes on business!

Which is why you need proper policing of the laws - everyone will try to "get away" with what they can if you let them. Tax evasion and the black economy is a growing industry ever since the various tax bodies were merged which was an absolute cock up and left very little in the way of effective "policing" of tax matters.

@derxa well, it’s pretty obvious to me that if you want to persuade government ministers then it’s a foolish thing to do to have a protest outside at the same time with a group of politicians and individuals who dislike them. That is just basic stuff. Being heard has made no difference- I assume the protest would have made a difficult meeting even more so, and so I feel a bit sorry for the NFU officials who had to go in. They were there to really try and change things in which case the protest was unhelpful (like I say, support declined for farmers afterwards). You want to influence, you start thinking what you can have in common.

@bombastix if the NFU screwed up or indeed if the protests were a bad idea why are the government and the NFU currently in talks to resolve the issue?

I listened to the Institute of Fiscal Services podcast about this to try and sidestep the hyperbole and get some facts.

I loathe Jeremy Clarkson. Even his farming programme annoys the hell out of me, as I come from an agricultural background and can see so much of it is play farming for the cameras. Whilst the programme has raised public awareness of farming it has also made a shit ton of money for Clarkson. I don't think he did it as a public service!!!!

If you have an inequitable tax system, then people will use it to legally avoid paying tax. The existing inheritance tax on agricultural land has created exactly this issue. Wealthy people have bought up agricultural land to avoid inheritance tax. I spent years working in or on the fringes of the City and knew plenty of loaded old City boys who bought agricultural land with a tenant farmer precisely to avoid inheritance tax. There are plenty of more well publicised individuals to know that this exact issue exists.

Personally, I think we need to look at how we farm in the UK and how we want to farm and we need to consider how best to achieve the farming outcome that is required. Do we want to be more self-sufficient, do we want to produce food more efficiently, do we want economies of scale in farming? Without a properly considered food production policy, then we are only ever tinkering around at the edges.

I do think that the existing inequities in inheritance tax were undesirable. I'm not sure that the allowances proposed are quite right, but as the Government has yet to announce the finer details, I'm hoping there will be some room for manouvre and organisations like the NFU are feeding into the process.

I definitely think that populists like Jeremy Clarkson and that utter wanker, Nigel Garage should be quiet and not stir the pot. The only people they are interested in are themselves.

Truly baffling. 🙄

I don’t want to say that government ministers won’t talk to farmers. They will. Whether they change anything is another matter. All I hear is a government maintaining a public line.

Have you ever had to try and persuade someone of your point of view? If not, understand that you are unlikely to be successful if you run up with a group of people who say “I don’t like you”. That is totally basic. Governments don’t usually respond well to it; they usually double down.

The more I read the more I think this is a regional situation. Where we farm it’s ’smaller’ family farms owned by the farmer. My wider family have been farming in this county for hundreds of years. People like my cousin (nearly eighty). He was kicked in the face by a cow and drove himself to hospital with blood streaming down his face. Those sort of people.

But the nfu are separate from the protest and its organisers. You don’t seem to understand that idea.

Haven’t you said before that those people are unaffected by the changes though, @derxa ? I’m sure elsewhere you have said it won’t affect your farm or anyone you know personally - so why are you so convinced it will affect so many?

Shouldn’t they be at least trying to coordinate though? Shouting about how horrid and mean they are outside the building where others on your side are trying to hammer out a compromise seems…shortsighted at best.

Well, if nothing else, the move to impose IHT on agricultural land and the strong reaction provoked have managed to drive a dozen or so MN threads which are giving the issues (and many tangential issues related to tax avoidance, tax evasion and the collection of taxes, including several billions in the black economy) a more thorough airing from all views than will happen in Parliament.

@bombastix but that's not what they have done at all!
Farmers turned out on mass to show their feelings. There was no nastiness. Approximately 40 thousand people turned out to a peaceful rally. They donated 6.6 tons of food to local food banks.
They want to show what they do and demonstrate why the industry is so important.

Behind the scenes they have sat down worked out the figures and shown how and why labours figures are wrong.

There was no disruption or chaos it was orderly peaceful and respectful.

Do you think that the government will care to notice? That’s my point really. The narrative becomes Clarkson, land owners, evasion. That was the screw up. It was a shame the protest and the discussions were in the same day.

It won’t affect me because we are tiny. But I will take advice. I said I didn’t know exactly what others’ situation was.

No the narrative is the numbers.

So the type of people you were talking about above are unlikely to be affected also? Because they farm small farms? It’s the other type, like Clarkson, like Dyson, like lots of people with loads of money and no farming background who have bought land to avoid IHT (and in the process pushed the price up), that this policy is aimed at.
What happened to farms before the exemption came in? It’s not that long ago.

No, presumably because she pays her taxes. Good on her.

It is interesting how asking people to pay their fair share is framed by the privileged as 'politics of envy'.

Clarksons farm was great to raise the profile of farmers and to raise awareness of the work that goes into farming.

He's entirely the wrong person to be a spokesperson for IHT though.
He’s admitted he bought his farm as a tax dodge and as far as I’m aware his kids have no interest in farming or taking over his farm. If they are going to sell it off why shouldn’t IHT be paid on it.

He’s a massively polarising character who will damage their cause.

It is, isn’t it @hyperkid - usually by the same people who bang on about ‘champagne socialists’. So which is it, users of the phrases - are they all rich, the Labour MPs? Or are they all envious of the rich?
Or maybe they are just doing what they can to clean up a godawful mess without placing more burden on people who already have very little.

They don’t farm small farms. They have farms which are smaller than Jeremy Clarkson’s.

@cardibach please read this in full

Decided to write a post to kind of myth bust a lot of what is being said around the agricultural Inheritance Tax issue. Because this issue is important to EVERYONE and will affect all of us.
It’s going to be a long post but please read it in full.

What has changed?
So with the budget the government has removed both APR relief and BPR relief from all businesses.
APR = Agricultural Property Relief - this covers the land, the buildings and the farmhouse.
BPR = Business Property Relief - this covers the machinery, equipment, livestock, consumables such as seed and fertiliser and crop in the ground.
Now the first million of combined assets from both APR and BPR is IHT free and anything over 1 million is taxed at 20%.
Under certain conditions it MIGHT be possible for SOME farms to get up to 3 million tax free. But that doesn't work for all. It’s a case of if your circumstances meet the exact criteria your ok if not you won’t get the full 3 million.

When the government talk about 500 farms per year being affected they are only talking about the APR proportion of the tax. They have deliberately excluded talking about the fact that BPR is also included and taxed.

The NFU are saying that 75% of family farms will be affected.

• it will also include a significant number of tenant farmers as they still will be affected by BPR.
BPR will also affect a number of other industries as well.
Haulage firms, Contractors and any businesses with high asset values comparative to income will be badly affected.

At the same time subsidies are being cut by 70% in some cases
Tax on fertiliser is going up by £50 per ton.
Tax on domestic vehicles is going up over 200%
NI for employers is going up.

Why shouldn't farmers pay tax like every other business?
Because quite simply farming doesn't work like any other business does. Most businesses work out their pricing by working out the cost of production + profit and tax. They are in control of who they sell to. When component prices go up so to does the selling price.
Farming doesn't work like that. Farmers have little to no control over prices.
The combination of global markets, supermarket competition and subsidized food control the prices.
At the same time input costs and yields are not controllable either. Weather conditions play a huge role in how good the harvest is. Unless you are able to grow all your feed for your livestock there can be huge variation year to year on feed prices.

Farming is a high asset value to low income business. It is unique purely because it is a rubbish business model. But it is a necessary business. Without it quite simply we would have no food.

Why do farms make so little return?

A lot of the foods you buy are subsidised by the government and has been for decades.
if we had to pay the full costs we would have an even more serious poverty issue than we have already.

After the war in the 1950s we had a serious issue with malnutrition and issues like rickets. Food was short and expensive. The country on its knees after the horrors of the 1940s. In order to combat that the government subsidised lots of essential foods. So the public were paying artificially low prices for things like milk. They then paid the farmers a subsidy to partially make up the shortfall

For context in the 1980s people were paying approximately 25% of their household income on average on food.
Today it is approximately 13% so half.

A pint of milk was equal to two pints of beer
Now beer per pint is 13 x more expensive than a pint of milk.

If people want farmers to go back to paying IHT then they will need to double what they pay for food.

Can you afford that? Can everyone you know afford it?

It’s important to note too that even with subsidies farmers still do not get the full value of what they produce.

What about people buying land to avoid paying tax?
The likes of Clarkson and Dyson buying land is a red herring. That land is still in the business production of food. It's doing what's needed.

Many many big landowners rent agricultural land out at very reasonable rates for tenant farmers. They do so because they don't need the money for the rent (it needs to cover its cost not much more) because the payoff comes in the form of reduced IHT.

I personally know a farmer who rented land for 17 years from a landowner. Then when landowner was considering selling up he sold it to the farmer at a really good price and guaranteed the farmers mortgage!

That said though this budget will do nothing to deter those who seek to reduce their IHT bill as it will still be the cheapest way of reducing IHT bill.

But farmers voted for Brexit
farmers voted for brexit in no greater numbers percentage wise than any other profession.
Don't make sweeping judgments without actually knowing the FACTS.

Farmers are no more responsible for brexit than any other profession

What about Gifting the farm?

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?

Putting land in trusts is also complicated. For large landowners that is probably what they will do. So therefore the very wealthy will still avoid IHT.

But for the majority of farms putting it in a trust doesn’t work because once it’s in a trust you can’t borrow against it. So you can’t raise a loan or mortgage against it. This will slow or halt development and progression.

What are the potential consequences of this?
If we lose too many family farms due to this tax then they are likely gone forever. Other farmers won’t be able to buy up all the available land - they simply don’t have the money especially now.

If food production here reduces we become even more vulnerable to the instability of global markets.
At best it would mean price hikes at worst if there were to be another major war or global disaster we could have serious food shortages. You only have to think back to the panic in 2020 with covid to see the potential for chaos.

The predicted income from this tax is approximately 500million a year.
We are currently sending 536million a year abroad to develop agriculture in other parts of the world. Brazil being one of the largest recipients of our money - Brazil is the 11th largest economy in the world.

Stop sending more money abroad and leave farmers alone

I think he's a horrible man who will turn people right off.

Maybe. But in what passes for the progressive press in the U.K. which is read and influences Labour people you had Clarkson, Farage, Badenoch, and attacks on the BBC. These are all things unlikely to be popular with this government and yet both sections of the press jumped on them as the story. The Telegraph and the Guardian both had stories about Clarkson becoming a farming politician. it gets reductive very fast. Presenting it as a cultural battle from the outset was a mistake.