[Times article] Charlie Ireland: “Labour’s tax raid is the worst crisis I’ve seen in farming” 🚜
Posted by FlipStig1@reddit | thegrandtour | View on Reddit | 175 comments
Land agent Cheerful Charlie (the man who provides farm management advice to Jeremy Clarkson in the hit show “Clarkson’s Farm”) recently wrote an article in The Times highlighting the struggles of British farmers. Even though it’s a bit off-topic from the usual posts on this subreddit, I thought it was worth sharing here since many of us happen to like both shows.
“Jeremy calls me ‘Cheerful’ because the advice I give him is not always what he wants to hear. For example, when he wanted a bigger flock of sheep I had to tell him about grazing limits, and about food hygiene rules when he sliced off the top of his thumb in the potato crisp machine. Sometimes this makes me sound like a mouthpiece for the government but, far from it, I’m on the farmers’ side.”
(Please note that depending on how and where you access this link, a strong paywall may appear. If you encounter it, what happens after that is up to you alone.)
hopenoonefindsthis@reddit
And not Brexit that took away billions of EU funding and made it more difficult to sell to a bigger market?
alex3494@reddit
Good old whataboutism
jedixxyoodaa@reddit
But clarkson was pro breit so that cant be a reason
Campandfish1@reddit
Source?
Professional_Elk_489@reddit
He's a farmer so it makes sense he would be anti-Brexit as it gives a common market to sell goods into free from tariffs and red tape
TGX03@reddit
He even spoke out against it in "The Great Hunt", so no
Notacat444@reddit
A Massive Hunt
Milk-One-Sugar@reddit
He was actually anti-Brexit. I was surprised at the time
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/jeremy-clarkson-david-cameron-my-gut-says-stay-in-the-eu
noodle_attack@reddit
I mean he plays a character.... Not enough people realise this
TheManFromFairwinds@reddit
Is it surprising? Few people have benefited from the ability to travel and work all over the EU like him
ainsley-@reddit
Clarkson was incredibly anti brexit
wantdafakyoubesh@reddit
He was strongly against Brexit.
dangermouse13@reddit
No, he didn’t support it
orbital0000@reddit
Did he stutter?
Cubeazoid@reddit
Brexit gave the UK legislative and executive authority. What the government did with that authority is the problem, not the authority itself
hopenoonefindsthis@reddit
The mental gymnastics you have demonstrated here is truly amazing
weavin@reddit
Ahh so that’s the current line is it?
killer_by_design@reddit
I'm pasting an comment I made on another thread here because there's so much misinformation around this topic:
The threshold is £5m and after that it's only a 20% marginal tax payable over 10 years.
Allowances: - £1m per married person so £2m for married parents - £1m if a home forms part of the inheritance - £1m business relief per married person so an additional £2m
Total: £5m Source: Chartered Accounting professor Richard Murphy
Average UK farm value: £2.2m
This tax *does not* target the likes of even Clarkson whose farm was valued at ~£4m when he purchased it.
This tax targets the likes of:
Largest farmer in the UK: James Dyson
Land holding: 36,000 acres, or equivalent to half of Edinburgh.
It's such a reasonable tax I can't believe the fuss it's caused.
Sooperfreak@reddit
The issue of whether £1,666.67/month is a low sum depends on the income generated by the farm.
Average business income for UK farms is roughly £50k to £100k per year. Assuming that correlates with an average value of £2.2m and scales with size, your £6m farm example generates around £150k-£250k per year. In that context, a £200k inheritance tax bill over 10 years represents around 10% of their income. That's massive and I can really see why that would cause problems for farmers.
However, there's clearly another underlying issue here and that's the valuation of farms. In any other industry, a business that generated £150k-£250k annual profits being valued at £6m would be madness. A price to earnings ratio of 30x puts the average UK farm on a par with the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple.
What does this mean? It shows that UK farmland is vastly, vastly overvalued in comparison to the money it can generate. This is likely a function of the general massive overvaluation of all property in the UK. Really, your £6m farm with its huge tax bill should be valued at more like £3m and pay no tax.
Ultimately, the way to fix this for farmers is to massively reduce the value of farmland. For farmers who want to pass the farm down through generations, this shouldn't really be a problem. That land is an unrealised asset, the only value of which is its ability to generate an income. The sort of people it's a massive, massive problem for are the likes of Clarkson and Dyson who have bought up land as an investment or tax dodge. For them, being fair to farmers means taking a huge hit on the value of their assets. Their crocodile tears for farmers are nothing more than them trying to protect their own wealth to the detriment of the very people they claim to be standing up for. They are lying parasites, pure and simple.
IHRSM@reddit
That's assuming the bugs, weather, and disease didn't take you out that year.
mattoisacatto@reddit
so £140k/yr? even a large and (relatively) profitable arable farm like that will struggle to pay it, you said yourself the farms value has roughly tripled since 2008 while farms barely get more for their product (average milk ppl was actually higher in 2008 than today)
Also source for average farm value? like you said there's a lot of misinformation around, even government departments disagree with each other.
killer_by_design@reddit
The average net worth across all farms in England was £2.2 million in 2022/23. Source: The UK government.
mattoisacatto@reddit
once landowner claims on blocks of bare farmland and non-commercial farms are removed from the evidence base used by Government, historical claim values are adjusted to reflect current market conditions and the combined impact of claiming BPR alongside APR is considered, the proportion of farms impacted increases significantly to 75%.
https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/an-impact-analysis-of-apr-reforms-on-commercial-family-farms/#Comparison
Defra and the treasury both give different figures and neither consider that most farms under £1m are not viable as a commercial farm.
CiaphasCain8849@reddit
I'm sure every farmer has 200 k liquid Don't worry. /S
killer_by_design@reddit
Sorry if I've misinterpreted the sarcasm but are you saying that they don't have the money for it?
Just in case you're suggesting that they don't they have 10 years to pay it back and a £6m asset to leverage. They're paying an effective tax rate of 3.45%.
If they decide "ahhh 10 years isn't long enough" and then instead took a mortgage out. The LTV would be 96.55%. They could finance that over 35 years and never farm a single day again in their lives.
If you were being sarcastic sorry for being so dumb. I just can't even fathom why the farmers are so up in arms.
mattoisacatto@reddit
https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/apr-case-studies/
its not as simple as that one example.
UnchillBill@reddit
Honestly this whole inheritance tax on farmers thing has made it very obvious that pretty much all farmers are financially incompetent or lying and disingenuous. If you have a £5m asset and can’t scrape together a couple of grand a month for taxes then you probably shouldn’t have that asset. You could sell it (or mortgage it), put the money in a stocks and shares isa, and get £500,000 a year in passive income from it. They’re taking the piss saying they need to work all hours in the day and earn a couple of thousand pounds a month.
If you’re an idiot with a farm just sell it to someone who can make use of it.
Gordon-Bennet@reddit
100%. If you were witness to all of this debacle and came away with sympathy for farmers you’re a fool.
MrMakarov@reddit
Why wouldn't they have to farm a day in there lives simply because they took out 200k as a mortgage over 35 years?
killer_by_design@reddit
I'm being a bit glib tbh.
More to the point, you could simply rent out the land to a proper farmer, charge £2k/month in rent and live for free in the farm house whilst your £6m asset appreciates in value.
MrMakarov@reddit
You'd have to charge more than 2k a month if you wanted to live decently. Mortgage would be like 8-900ish.
No idea what going rate is farm rent so not gonna delve into what it should be.
This is the main problem, everyone just sees the value of the asset when farmers aren't cash rich. We need farms/farmers in this country. If actual farmers sell up for an easy life, who do you think is going to buy the farms from them? The actual millionaires you all have a problem with who'll lock them away in a trust, avoiding tax. probably do something else with the land as well so we have to import even more food than we do now and be even further at the mercy of fluctuating global prices.
Imbiss@reddit
£1,666.67/month
CiaphasCain8849@reddit
That's a lot.
bellatrix99@reddit
For a 6 million pound farm? No it’s not!
cabeep@reddit
This movement against the tax has most likely been incredibly astroturfed. Our last government in new Zealand had similar movements against their extremely moderate proposals
maxhaton@reddit
Dan Neidle (online tax nerd) who is literally a labour activist came out against it eventually, it's not that simple.
cabeep@reddit
Online tax nerds will shill for whoever pays them. This pattern has emerged any time some nominally 'left' wing party does anything
maxhaton@reddit
he's a labour activist who works for a group he founded...
BenXL@reddit
UK tabloid media is very powerful. And evil.
cabeep@reddit
Absolutely, with how bad ours is I shudder to imagine what you are subjected to locally
weavin@reddit
Everything they’re doing is being astroturfed. This is the same old ‘bollocks to Blair’ lot. Either wealthy folk upset at losing special privileges or poor folk who spend their lives brown nosing the landed gentry.
jeepfail@reddit
I’m trying to wrap my head around Clarkson’s farm being so cheap honestly. To get acreage like that in a place worth living in the US would cost far more.
frozented@reddit
prime farmland in Iowa and Illinois is going for 15k an acre right now i've see some bidding wars get 20k
killer_by_design@reddit
I just fact checked that. It was £4.4m when he bought it in 2008. Apparently now it's around £12m. Questionable source.
He is literally in the most expensive place to have a farm. For context of the area: Former prime minister and current Lord David Cameron is his neighbour that Charlie negotiated on behalf of in the goat episode.
David Cameron Eton alum, member of the notorious bullingdon club and also alleged net worth of $50m. Also implicated in the Panama Papers leaks for hoarding millions offshore and precisely the person who this IHT change is looking to target.
jeepfail@reddit
Okay, that valuation seems more spot on and more likely for rich people to own it. Seems like an amazing way to spend £12m though if you are going to spend it on a home.
Proof_Drag_2801@reddit
Is this meant to be irony?
Your "average farm" data (from Labour's info) includes individual fields purchased for tax avoidance, smallholdings and hobby farms. None of those are actually proper farm businesses.
Remove them and you'll see what all of the farmers have been saying since the budget - that a huge proportion of farm businesses, which is the sector that the exemption is supposed to protect, are then hit.
Farmers average income is below the national average. The whole "rich farmers" meme is beyond ridiculous. If a farmer sells the land then they might be rich, but they will also no longer be a farmer.
The ammended tax protects the tax avoiders and hobbyists and hurts the people that actually make their living off the land.
Labour's own tax advisor Dan Neidle has proposed a much better solution here but the government will need the humility to listen and intellectual honesty to be able to amend the policy.
It doesn't need to even be that complicated. The whole thing would be easy to fix by placing a 40% inheritance tax claw-back on the sale of inherited agricultural property. Investors sell the inherited property to release the liquidity, but farmers don't.
The right people would pay the taxes and the farm businesses (not individuals inheriting) would be protected. There would be no incentive to hide money in agricultural property and land prices would come down. The current ROI of 0.5% is galling when compared with the UK industrial average ROI of 10%. This situation is entirely because of tax avoidance by non farmers.
We are a small family farm (<200 acres) in the SE. We are definitely not rich - one parent farms and the other is a teacher that works for nothing in the evenings, weekends, and holidays. We will be irreparably damaged by this tax raid.
It is a strangely Thatcherite version of socialism when the means of production are forced from the lower paid workers and into the hands of the tax dodging wealthy urbanites and multinationals. I thought landlords were supposed to be the baddies to Labour; it's strange that they want to force so many more of us to be subject to them.
Dontkillgrandma@reddit
Literally capitalism. I have no idea why you would use socialism as a buzzword here.
Proof_Drag_2801@reddit
We have a Labour government, no?
Dr_Poth@reddit
Richard Murphy is an idiot. He’s a high street accountant basically.
wazzedup1989@reddit
Are any of the presented figures wrong?
Dr_Poth@reddit
Richard Murphy is a grade A moron. There’s a reason he has to be a self employed grifter. I mean theres the figures he picks and then there’s reality.
fdisfragameosoldiers@reddit
Yes, they are incorrect. The highest relief threashold is £3.5m. That's with both of the parents being married and both names being on the property/business titles. It amazes me how the general public is so thick, as to think farmers don't have accountants who have already looked into this.
killer_by_design@reddit
Please check the source. As a business forms part of the inheritance there is an additional £1m relief on top of the agricultural reliefs which is what brings the total to £5m.
wildstyle96@reddit
Two married parents die and pass on a farm that has their home on the land. The value of the land, agricultural machinery, home and all assets held by the business totals £6m and they are passing the inheritance to their single child.
Hasn't all of that stuff already been taxed?
Why does the government deserve to double or triple dip in some circumstances?
killer_by_design@reddit
Actually no. The lion's share of peoples wealth is typically from property value increases.
An example from my grandad. He bought his house for £5k in 1970. It's now worth £2m. He hasn't sold it, we don't have property taxes in the UK (council tax is calculated on property value but it's the same as a property tax). At no point during it's appreciation has there been any taxable event such as a stamp duty when it's sold, capital gains tax etc.
So no. It hasn't been taxed.
IHT is also a progressive tax. Only 4% of estates will ever qualify to pay IHT. It targets the absolute wealthiest in society and puts a small tax burden on them. This is a great step to reduce wealth concentration, inequality and raise much needed tax revenues.
Because we have a collective responsibility to each other. When you die in hospital you'll have led an entire birth, life and death utterly dependent on the collective support of all of us. As will I. We need to pay for that and taxes are how we do it. You already pay layers of taxes on various things in your life now.
If you qualify for IHT then well done. You're in the top 4% of society. You have benefited the most from this society and the most British thing to do is to look after others especially those less fortunate. That's how it's always been and how it should be.
wildstyle96@reddit
He paid taxes when he bought the house didn't he? If someone wants to turn the house into £2 million, the government will get its cut.
Everyone has originally paid what society believes is fair.
To then turn on a minority for more money, because their house has increased in value, isn't a case of collective responsibility - it's the government shaking down certain groups for more money and using disdain for "rich" people to do so. The government will say whatever rubbish it wants to convince people of their righteousness, but it will never reduce its spending or efficiency.
The UK used to tax windows ffs.
killer_by_design@reddit
Holy shit...are you calling multimillionares a minority? "Please, won't someone think of the millionaires!!! They really have it hard".
55 years ago.....
And no, he has not realised any profits so has never paid tax on any gains. So no. He hasn't paid tax.
You literally just don't like taxes. Please do remember that the next time your saying a sexually inappropriate comment to your Nurse, having been taken to hospital in an ambulance on publiy funded roads, cared for by staff educated in publicly funded schools, getting your state pension etc etc.
You are the product of this society and reap the benefits of being British. It's your responsibility to contribute back to that. Otherwise you're basically just a scrounger. Don't be a scrounger, pay your share.
No_Put_5096@reddit
The patience with you, I applaud it. These twats are the reason we are heading for doomsday. They only think about themselves, and always forget that the rest of us have to think about them.
wildstyle96@reddit
Because I'm the one with the farm property right?
Amazing how you can justify taking something from someone else, if it's for a good cause. But that doesn't make you selfish.
At what point do people like you draw the line? When does the government actually have to effectively use the money they have, instead of stealing more of it?
wildstyle96@reddit
I'm fine with taxes, I'm not fine with shaking people up for more because the government is a dog shit economic manager.
We're talking about people's homes. Not piles of gold. That evil man bought a house, paid taxes his whole life and now you want to tax it again because you need more money.
So, at what point is it too far? If the government is struggling so much, bring back the window tax. It's fair right? Let's tax the rain water they collect and the food they grow in their gardens too - hell, let's take it from them and give it to people less fortunate who have no food!
The gall to call someone a scrounger because they didn't pay >enough< taxes, in your opinion.
Fenrir-The-Wolf@reddit
They didn't say they're being persecuted, they said they're a minority. These are not the same thing. Not even remotely.
n365pa@reddit
Correct. Taxation on inheritance is theft.
Washingtonpinot@reddit
Find me a farmer that doesn’t already have a mortgage and responsibilities by the time his aged parents die that can take on an additional 1.7K a month in bills. Of course you can’t, so you have to break up the farm. Which is not how it was laid out, so there will be other costs and inefficiencies, which in turn…etcetera, etcetera.
You must be in financing because they are the only ones who think farming pencils out like this. Even worse, you tried to “humanize” the numbers by making it sound like the single person was getting a great deal. But put some more color to that picture and you’ll realize that its simplicity and lack of perspective make it look like a childish doodle.
Ubericious@reddit
They just inherited a £5m tax free, they can cry me a river
RacerRovr@reddit
For the person who has inherited it, it literally makes no difference if they own it or not. They are likely already working on the farm full time and probably running most of it if their dad is in their old age. Just because it is now legally yours the next day, it makes no difference to them. They are just going to continue to do the same job they were already doing
Ubericious@reddit
That's what their boot straps are for, pulling up
RacerRovr@reddit
So what, you want someone to be financially crippled for the sake of what? This persons example just casually says that someone has £1.7k of extra bills to pay each month for 10 years, on top of what they already have. And that was with maximum tax relief. If they only had one parent, that’s £3.4K a month. How is someone supposed to afford that? They aren’t rich just because they have an expensive property. The property is only worth so much due to mass inflation of land value
Ubericious@reddit
This is what everyone else goes through when their parents die, farmers aren't special and with a bit of forethought in their financial planning there wouldn't be inheritance tax to pay. Where is my river?
RacerRovr@reddit
Firstly I’m against inheritance tax in general for everybody, not just for farmers.
A bit of forethought is a very stupid thing to say. What if you get cancer? What if you get killed on the job? How can you financially plan for something you can’t control?
Ubericious@reddit
And there we have it.
I am and I have a lot to lose to the tax man, but I understand that it is what is required for a functional economy.
Wealth tax now..
RacerRovr@reddit
What?! What are you on about? With what money is a young farmer supposed to pay these taxes with? I don’t think you have a good understanding of the farming industry are are thinking of the top % of land owners in this country that you want to tax. What you don’t realise is that this is going to badly affect a huge number of people that are earning an average to decent living, and could cause a huge amount of irreversible damage to the industry, as people are forced to sell farmland to pay this tax. And the only people that can afford to buy it are the super wealthy. So all this will inevitably do is transfer more land into the hands of the super rich
Ubericious@reddit
I will never change your mind, you are completely against inheritance tax. I have a lot to lose to inheritance tax but I understand it's role in a functional economy. I do think the current minimums are too low, they should be £5m for everyone but I don't think they go far enough for those with more than £10m and that they should include trusts.
I grew up in rural Cornwall, my grandfather was a farmer, I had friends who are farmers growing up. I know farmers and I know the pressure they have, someone inheriting a £5m asset though doesn't have the same pressure as a single mother or the elderly who can't afford care.
Tax wealth, then the market pressures which drive up the cost of farms and homes in rural areas, like Cornwall, might abate
Fenrir-The-Wolf@reddit
Tax wealth and the wealthy leave, simple as.
Ubericious@reddit
They can't take their assets with them
Optimaximal@reddit
If Dad was getting into his old age and unable to work the farm, he should have signed it over to his keen farmer kids years ago.
RacerRovr@reddit
You cannot predict when you are going to die. What happens if you are fit and healthy then get cancer? Or die in a car crash? Tough shit kids, here’s a £400,000 tax bill, have fun!
Optimaximal@reddit
It's what the rest of us have to deal with to some degree or another. 🤷♂️
There are ways to plan for many eventualities and it doesn't matter if it's a family business or a massive corporation - all businesses should really have disaster recovery and succession plans...
Washingtonpinot@reddit
Your capricious myopia tells us that you know fuck all about the actual daily life and obligations of those who provide the food for our grocers.
Ubericious@reddit
The pot calling the kettle black isn't a great look
BigBadAl@reddit
Their parents can start gifting parcels of the farm to their children now, and providing they live 7 years and the children work those parcels, then they'll be free from IHT.
Farmers are definitely getting a better deal than anyone else, with their lower tax rate and 10 year interest free repayment plan. This could well result in the wealthy looking to put their money elsewhere, making farmland cheaper for genuine farmers.
I was brought up in the countryside, worked on local farms as a kid, and went to school with farmers' kids. Those farms are now large mansions, with swimming pools and tennis courts, and the outbuildings converted to living space or large garages. Fields that were rotated between arable and pasture are now just paddocks that get rented out to friends or local horse owners.
Farming has been destroyed because its properties have been cheap and tax efficient buys for the wealthy. Remove the tax advantage and farming might recover.
killer_by_design@reddit
You need to look into Gift with reservation of benefit (GWR).
If you do gift something in order to avoid IHT you cannot benefit on any way..for instance if you gift your house to your child, then you would need to pay market rent in order to continue living there or move out.
If your working farm was gifted to a child, in order to satisfy GWR you would then need to pay rent to your child at market rate in order to satisfy the need, or that parcel of land cannot be farmed by the estate.
Abso-fucking-lutely. It's a great deal. They're upset it isn't absolutely no tax whatsoever.
This is the thing people seem to be missing. In the press they'll show muddy wellied working farmers. When in actual fact the majority of farms are owned by privately educated land barons who do a little bit of shooting here and there and call that farming. When in reality they're renting out their land to the real farmers who have absolutely no chance whatsoever of saving up for their own farms.
Optimaximal@reddit
People forget that in the entire conceit of Clarkson's Farm is that he had the farm operated by a third party for years, but that man retired and Jeremy had a commitment to Amazon to produce at least one non-GT show.
SpottedDicknCustard@reddit
You're completely ignoring the 10 year grace period they will be given to pay the taxes as opposed to the normal six month period.
If a farmer is unable to budget those costs over a ten year period then they have serious issues beyond those taxes.
jbrevell@reddit
I'm not sure this calculation is correct.
Each spouse gets 325k plus 175k for their residence. This is passed to the surviving partner. Therefore the surviving partner on their death can leave 1m of assets and house before IHT.
APR and BPR have a combined allowance of 1m person
This gives a total allowance for a married couple who owns a farm with a farmhouse of 3m.
RacerRovr@reddit
Your example is using the maximum amount of relief, and you’ve used James Dyson in your argument who is one of the wealthiest and biggest land owners in the country.
Also, in your example, it is misleading to say they inherit 5.8million. They inherit assets that are worth that amount, but the value of that is kind of meaningless really. All of those assets are tied up in the business, which is already struggling to make any kind of money. The only way I’m which you see any of that money is by liquidating it, at which point you no longer have a functional business.
I think you would be surprised at how many farms would fall into the taxable bracket. There is a reason why everybody I’m the industry is being so vocal about this, and it’s not because ‘rich people don’t want to pay their taxes’. People are genuinely worried about the future of their farms and their children’s future in farming.
For the record, I’m personally against inheritance tax altogether, not just for farmers. I don’t think anyone should have to pay tax on something that their family already owns
RadlEonk@reddit
I disagree on your last statement. Parents may own something and a tax to pass it legally to their children seems fair to me. The kids still get property at a huge discount than if it was in the market.
RacerRovr@reddit
How is it a fair tax if you have no money in which to pay for it? And it’s not a small amount either. The original comment just casually says ‘oh it’s only £1.7k a month for 10 years. Really? Could you afford an extra £1.7k a month for the next 10 years on top of all your current bills? Working in an industry where you have no stable income, and you have no idea how much you are going to earn each year because it’s al dictated by external markets?
weavin@reddit
The value of it isn’t meaningless as they could liquidate the assets at will
RacerRovr@reddit
Yeah but you get taxed when you liquidate it with capital gains tax. Also if you liquidate assets then you no longer have a functional business.
weavin@reddit
But you do have millions of pounds and would never need to work again in your life, so there’s that
RacerRovr@reddit
Ask any young farmer what they want to do, and I can guarantee they will tell you they just want to carry on farming. They don’t want the riches, they are happy with the lifestyle.
But regardless of that, if more farmland goes up for sale, it just means more land will be bought by the super wealthy, as they are the only ones who can afford it
weavin@reddit
Your point was that liquidating is meaningless, my point is it’s not because they could be rich. You were making out like they have zero choice in the matter when those in that situation they have more choice than 99% of the population does
killer_by_design@reddit
Well no. It's still an operational business that has revenue.
You'll often see numbers quoted for farmers "salaries" but it's incredibly misleading. They're business owners and what they are referring to is the net profit that they then draw as a salary.
You'll see numbers quoted like "farmers only make £25k" but that number is after all housing, travel, utilities and vehicles have been deducted as they are all part of the business costs.
What salary would you or I need to earn to have £25k after paying for your housing costs, your utilities, your car payment and even their fuel is cheaper. They all use Red diesel which doesn't have Tax on it. Food is subsidised as they will take their own produce.
It's the most progressive tax we have. Only 4% of estates will ever pay IHT. It helps ease intergenerational wealth from breaking our country. It's exceptionally modest and it provides a net benefit for our country.
Most of the assets Taxed under IHT haven't had a taxable event in decades. Houses that have appreciated millions without having been sold nor subject to CGT/Stamp duty since the 70's. Why should they transfer to someone else without that person paying any tax at all? We desperately need public spending. If 14 years of Tory mismanagement and austerity hasn't proven that to you then I'm sorry but maybe we shouldn't be leaving you unsupervised.
Simoxs7@reddit
Honestly I don’t get how people could get angry that generational wealth is finally somewhat tackled by a government.
Our economies are literally collapsing right now because wealth only collects in the top 0.1%
YesIAmRightWing@reddit
okay and what about farms aren't turning a net profit.
how are they to pay the monies?
killer_by_design@reddit
I'm sorry but I'm not going to explain capitalism to you. What would you do with a business that doesn't turn a profit but has assets valued at £6m?
This is a country not a charity for have a go farmers.
YesIAmRightWing@reddit
I guess I won't need to explain why food supply could be seen as a security issue to a country.
Its been well highlighted in the last couple of years in no thanks to Russia's invasion.
killer_by_design@reddit
If it's of public need then it should be in public ownership.
I'm not a huge fan of corporate welfare.
YesIAmRightWing@reddit
so it can fail like the NHS? or how about the Education system? Or these councils that are going bankrupt.
Am not a fan of the inept government being in charge of the food supply.
killer_by_design@reddit
I'm an open water swimmer. I can't even tell you how many days I can't swim because of how full to the brim with literal shit our rivers are.
Taking the train to work costs me £7k/year.
My energy bills are the highest in the world.
Please....do tell me how great privatisation is....
Also, the NHS saved my wife's life just last year after the death of my son. If this was the US I would be, no joke, millions of pounds in medical debt.
The NHS is struggling but it's still capable and an alternative private system would not be the blessing you seem to believe it would be.
YesIAmRightWing@reddit
What the rivers the goverment was supposed to be looking after?
The trains that have been coming into public ownership and make fuck all in profit? Or shall we just look back at British Rail to see how much of a shit show it was.
The energy bills that sky rocket because the government chases net zero like a dog chases its tail?
Please tell me how great public ownership it.
Its not all either the US or the NHS.
Lots of shades between that work much better.
I'd personally rather not starve just because you want to swim in pond.
killer_by_design@reddit
Or another way to phrase that is "yes I am happy our rivers, lakes and waterways are absolutely chock full of shit, piss and everything else flushed down a loo because I've got mine and so fuck you. I'm really only concerned about maximising shareholder value, the country can burn but provided the dividends are being paid and the bonuses are flowing I'm alright."
YesIAmRightWing@reddit
yes, got mine, hoping the country has a secure and stable food supply instead of public sector doing what it always does, which is fuck it up.
i guess that makes me a terrible person
FreakingScience@reddit
How often are two married farmers dying at the same time so that an estate of any kind is passed down from both parents to a child, rather than from a widow(er) to a child? What if the next of kin is a younger sibling and not a child of the previous owner? What if the previous owners were an unmarried couple for whatever reason?
It doesn't sound cut and dry enough, and if it's supposed to target barons like Dyson, 5m is a pretty paltry threshold. A single piece of equipment might be 2m or more and not be out of place on a small farm, especially if it's regularly hired out to other farmers. This plan certainly isn't the worst but could still be improved.
Optimaximal@reddit
If one half of a marriage dies before the other, portions of their inheritance allowance is passed over to their widow/widower.
Source - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transferring-unused-basic-threshold-for-inheritance-tax
What if the previous owners were an unmarried couple for whatever reason?
I mean, tough luck? This applies in most cases of inheritances, wills etc. Marriages & Civil Partnerships are just as much legal processes as they are personal commitments. They confer automatic rights (in the UK anyway) on the partners that aren't available to people who co-habit with verbal/social contracts.
If a person wants to set up some form of trust or establish a direct route of passing their estate to someone who is outside of the defined norms, they need to pay someone to establish it in a legal manner or set up a business contract with said person so that everything is handled that way.
There's a reason why Jeremy and Lisa won't marry - they both know how much money is in their estates and it's not financially viable for either of them to risk it if there's a divorce or death down the road.
sioux612@reddit
If that was the inheritance tax I'm going to have to pay one day I wouldn't even be mad
stercus_uk@reddit
I don’t get why we are supposed to be sympathetic to people who are bitching that they might have to pay half as much inheritance tax as literally everybody else, but only after capitalising on much better allowances as we all get.
mtcwby@reddit
The thing that most people don't realize is your average farmer is generally cash poor and it's a cash intensive business.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
...and?
maxhaton@reddit
Even if it were totally and deicisely immoral or whatever for farmers to not pay IHT, that is not the question. You either do it or you don't, and if it's introduced it might cause a mass sell-off yielding less land actually used for farming *and* making remaining farms less viable. People seem to be forgetting that you have to pay up quite quickly, it's not like CGT
As always - "Change? Aren't things bad enough already?"
SchmuckTornado@reddit
Right, you either do or you don't, and in this case you do. Pretty easy.
hughk@reddit
We aren't talking income tax but rather inheritance tax that most of us will never pay.
They have a weird kind of business where they have a very high level of assets in terms of land and equipment for their business and they personally own it. Unlike most people, this goes well above the inheritance tax level even if they are not so well off.
If the farm is genuinely being passed on in the family, then something needs to be done so it isn’t broken up and sold. Few businesses face a similar problem as they are lighter on assets.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
Yes the people who own a lot of valuable things are going to pay taxes on the valuable things they own. Very normal.
hughk@reddit
Most people who have valuable things are indeed very wealthy.
If I have a $10m yacht, then it is quite possible that I have a number of more liquid assets. So easy to pass on with a nice big payment for inheritance to the tax man. They can afford it. If I want to pass on a house, that is only part of my assets. A farm is the business though.
The problem is that if I have a $10m farm, if I pass it on to my son who wants to continue to farm it, how will he pay off the tax man? One solution is to use it as security but the repayments may make the farm uneconomical to run. Another is to split the farm up and that too can be a problem as it may not economical on the smaller scale.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
They'll have to plan for their taxes just like everybody else. Oh the horror.
hughk@reddit
And then they say "Farming isn't worth it". More and more are saying that so the number of entrants is drying up.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
That's certainly the emotional blackmail they're pushing to avoid paying the same taxes as everybody else.
hughk@reddit
You are deliberately misunderstanding me. Most other people don't have so much in the way of cash buried in assets needed for their business. Interestingly, Germany gives middle sized business owners special allowances for passing the business down through the family (hence the special sector). In the UK, smaller businesses would be taken over and optimised which has done so well for other businesses.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
No, I'm not misunderstanding you at all.
hughk@reddit
So why should they lose it all? You can't tell your kids they can take over the business.
I work for myself too. I could pass on my business to my son without paying any tax as the business assets are so small. I probably make more than most farmers as my costs are much lower.
The only ones who usually benefit when a farm is sold or broken up are the major companies who buy in. They are less likely to run it with local interests in mind.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
Fortunately they're not required to lose it all, they just have to pay their taxes. Magic.
REDDIT_JUDGE_REFEREE@reddit
Your comments were a displeasure to read.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
Reality is tough.
mtcwby@reddit
Because you're eating the results. But by all means don't eat.
It's a unique business and in our best interest for it to exist with experts doing it. People have been doing it a long time. Like maybe growing up in the business. The UK is being incredibly foolish about taxes somehow thinking by increasing them that they'll improve growth. But they've been foolish about it for a long time now.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
You also eat the results of what restaurant owners and grocery stores do, should they not pay taxes? You need doctors and nurses and teachers too, should they be tax free? What about an office worker at a food producer/distributor. You're eating the results of their labor, do they get to avoid taxes as well?
Simoxs7@reddit
Not to mention that farmers couldn’t live the life / work like they currently do if the other jobs wouldn’t exist.
Like try to fuel your combine and tractor without people working in petrochemical or what seeds do they plant if biotech wouldn’t exist, not to mention they wouldn’t have any pesticides and there are countless other industries that a farmer couldn’t work without, just because you don’t directly consume their products doesn’t mean they’re less important.
Fenrir-The-Wolf@reddit
Brother, people have been farming for 10000 years. It is the bedrock of civilisation.
Simoxs7@reddit
Yup without any tools, modern farming is a high tech business and highly reliant on other industries.
Or you farmin by hand still?
Fenrir-The-Wolf@reddit
The point
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
your head
mtcwby@reddit
It's a waste to continue this as your understanding of the situation is apparently too limited. I can only guess you're a civil servant.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
By all means throw a tantrum because reality upsets you.
mtcwby@reddit
Actually just went to bed and didn't care. Not even my country.
Jared_Usbourne@reddit
"I can't think of a reply so I'll make up your job and insult you."
mtcwby@reddit
More of I'm going to bed and can't be bothered. It doesn't affect me and mine and even if I'd convinced him, what good does it do. I'll feel bad for those affected but there are other causes in my own country.
SchmuckTornado@reddit
And we will continue to eat the results when they pay their taxes lol.
SpeedflyChris@reddit
Land agent who presumably benefits enormously from advising wealthy people on avoiding tax, is against making it slightly less profitable to use farmland to avoid tax.
Shocker.
maxhaton@reddit
I don't think that's what he does
Chriswheela@reddit
I think people miss the bigger picture here, I don’t think farmers should get away with anything tax wise, but they literally put food on our table, we should want to encourage a rich and hard working farm industry here in the UK and not be importing so much food. I get the points for and against, but farmers don’t have an easy bloody life even if they are inherited land, but they inherit a HARD job that lasts a lifetime, we should take care of these hugely valuable people
Strange_Purchase3263@reddit
Farmers have been milking the subsidy gravy train for deacdes now, and most of them were backed by the tory voting members of the NFU, the one union that did not get busted by Thatcher and to this day refuses to release party donation information when requested under the FOIA!
Do not feel sorry for them, not one bit!
hughk@reddit
The problem is to provide shelter for genuine for people actually farming but avoiding giving those benefits to those who just want to avoid inheritance tax. So although he didn't start out as one, Clarkson is definitely a farmer these days.
bucket_of_frogs@reddit
Even worse than the Foot and Mouth epidemic? Mad cow disease? Loss of EU subsidies? Stop it.
n365pa@reddit
He seems like a wise man.
victorpaparomeo2020@reddit
He’s just another fucking gammon mouthpiece for his super wealthy customers.
MrMakarov@reddit
As opposed to a socialist mouthpiece for everyone with their hands outstretched for other people's money
LickMyKnee@reddit
How the fuck do you think you run a country without other peoples money?
MrMakarov@reddit
By making better use of taxpayer money and not taxing money that's already been taxed over and over. You work and save and get taxed your whole life for the government to stick their greedy hands out when you die.
Jared_Usbourne@reddit
Except most people don't pay a penny when they die as they aren't wealthy enough.
MrMakarov@reddit
Crab mentality in this country. Pulling people back down who are doing better. The really wealthy people who you'd all love this o effect will never pay it anyway. It will be in trusts and whatever else so the government never sees a penny
Jared_Usbourne@reddit
But inheritance tax is paid by the estate of the person who's just died, it doesn't impact them. It's impacting their kids who are about to inherit a shitload that they haven't worked for.
If you really cared about incentivising people to 'do better' you should be in favour of *higher* inheritance tax so it encourages them to stand on their own two feet instead of just living off their parent's money.
MrMakarov@reddit
Nothing to do with incentivising people to do better, it's about the government being leaches on the dead and their family. On already HEAVILY taxed money.
LickMyKnee@reddit
They won’t take a penny from me when I die.
Only the millionaire land-owning class will pay. As they right well should.
InstitutionalizedOwl@reddit
The average house price in England in June 2023 was £306,000. As of May last year the average house price in London was £523,000. You start paying inheritance tax on your estate at £325,000.
It's not just the millionaires who pay death duties.
LickMyKnee@reddit
Boomers have based their entire worth on the value of their houses. Values must go up or else the whole world is going to end. Everything must be done to ensure they go up. Starting a family and needing a sensible priced starter home? Fuck you! Houses must be as expensive as possible. Actually more expensive than possible.
And now they’re crying that they’re paying taxes. Fuck them.
ALA02@reddit
Yeah about farming matters, not about politics, he’s just another rural Tory throwing his toys out the pram about not being able to game the system and avoid paying a fair share
royalblue1982@reddit
I'm open to the idea that this hasn't been implemented that well - but I still struggle to understand why an inheritance tax represents an urgent threat to today's farmers and why a small amount of estate planning can't be used to get around it.
How can a farm be worth £5m if it only returns £25k a year? Something is wrong there? Maybe it should be used for something else if so much valuable machinery and land is producing so little profit.
Or . . . . is the reason that it's worth £5m because rich people have been using farming as a way of avoiding inheritance tax and that has pushed up values?
Maybe we need to revisit this and change the law so that genuine family farms can be passed down from generation to generation without tax. But that means that you can't buy a farm for £5m, leave it to your kids and then they sell up tax free the following year. If they EVER sell then the inheritance tax should be payable.
Azariah98@reddit
Because land is incredibly valuable and only getting moresp.
There are definitely things that make more money you could do with the land, but one of the basic tenets of human beings, that we have to eat, prevents this from being a purely financial decision. And you can’t just say they should import the food from somewhere else because what if Britain gets into a dispute with whomever they’re importing from and they stop sending you food?
People have to eat, and making the food yourself is critical to national security.
BatoutofHellIV@reddit
The land isn't valuable because it's farm land - it's valuable because it's a tax loop hole.
Address the loop hole and the non-farmers driving up the price of the land will drop out of the market, making it cheaper for the people who actually want to use it as farm land.
Azariah98@reddit
It’s valuable because it’s open land in a world where we keep having more and more people yet a finite amount of land. Escalating demand and consistent supply drive costs up.
BatoutofHellIV@reddit
That's not why the wealthy are buying it.
royalblue1982@reddit
Yeah, that's the argument, but it's not a particularly well thought through one. Even during WW2 we were able to maintain our food supplies, and that was a worst case scenario. A lot of our farming is highly inefficient in terms of calorie production. If anything did happen to global food markets we could massively increase production just by changing farm usage.
Azariah98@reddit
Food production wasn’t targeted in The Blitz as far as I know.
wazzedup1989@reddit
I think that's actually quite a key point. If the farm produces no real value in terms of income, nobody would want to buy it and it's valuation would drop.
Farm land has become valued too highly, because it's a very effective tax dodge for the ultra rich, it's a valued asset. By removing this demand, the resource value falls to the point where no real farmer is going to be paying IHT.
Snowbold@reddit
And while other side of the pond issue, farm land is valuable to pave over and turn into suburbs. Places like Idaho and Utah are seeing this as homes are being built on the farm lands that used to grow potatoes and beets (Idaho) because its more profitable to give up farming than try and break even year after year. A developer will give them ungodly amounts of money so they can build a city with six/seven figure homes.
IDK if that is happening in the UK too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. And what it all does is push to more reliance on corporate agriculture that this supposedly is going after.
wazzedup1989@reddit
We do have various areas and rules which prevent this, but also this isn't about going after corporations which focus on agriculture, that's not the issue in the UK. The issue is that rich individuals realised that by buying farm land they can dodge inheritance tax, and they then lead that land or to 'actual' farmers to actually farm. James Dyson has no interest in actually farming his land, he just wants to act as a farm landlord and use its value to protect his wealth.
NotAnRSPlayer@reddit
It’s the farm including assets, a big bulk of that £5m is the tractors and machinery. Farm land also went up because rich people were buying up land, reducing supply which increased the costs because they wanted to use it as a ‘clever’ way to get around the IHT rules at the time
orbital0000@reddit
I knew these comments would be a screeching treet, I wasn't disappointed.
theravemaster@reddit
This reminds me of when those dutch "farmers" protested not too long ago, like this case it was just rich landowners angry they couldn't do as they pleased (there it was not using toxic pesticides and here it's not paying their fair share in taxes)
Usual-Journalist-246@reddit
He would say that though, wouldn't he?
TSMKFail@reddit
Isn't the high suicide rate because of debt in Australian farming the worst crisis? Not some old Tory geezers not being able to dodge tax
Federal-Research-148@reddit
Wealthy guy complaining because his wealthy customers need to pay tax so goes to a millionaire-friendly conservative news outlet to complain
tatsumakisenpuukyaku@reddit
oh no! land owners can't dodge taxes like they used to! the humanity!
Shadowhawk109@reddit
It's hard to feel bad for anyone feeling bad effects of British government after Brexit.
Turns out it was alllllll bullshit and now, just like MAGA, Britain is learning the hard way.
And Clarkson himself is rather right wing so maybe this will teach him a thing or two.
GhostRiders@reddit
Wrong sub mate, people here think of Clarkson like a God and anything that even passes as negative gets down voted.
Even when you point out that the reason this Tax was introduced was because of people like Clarkson buying farm land with the sole intention of avoiding paying tax.
It should come to no surprise as Clarkson is mates with David Cameron, Rebecca Brooks and a host of other truly awful people like most typical Tories which he is one.
Rogthgar@reddit
I kinda imagine he sees that because he sounds like the sort that works for the quite wealthy farmers and 'farmers' who are more upset that an obvious tax loop hole has been closed... even if they themselves might never pay a penny of it, since they will already be dead by then.
JoeSicko@reddit
Charlie must think he'll lose some income, too.