To the tractors
There has in recent times been a lot of Budget policies that have had to be reversed pronto as they have not been thought through or have caused a greater protest than expected.
This time farmers are up in arms about the prospect of ending their exemption from inheritance tax. Frankly they do not have anything to complain about.
Farmers receive billions in subsidies a year from poor tax payers to keep their firms and farms and lifestyles going. They are responsible for a heck of a lot of pollution and the death of much of our wildlife and then they plead that we have to support them for reasons of food security or because they are “guardians of the countryside”.
Well, the UK has been a food importer for at least 200 years, there is a limit to how much we should pay farmers to reduce our dependence on imports and farmers are very poor guardians if the state of our countryside is anything to go by.
But more importantly why should farms be immune from inheritance tax? It is a huge distortion and grossly unfair to everyone who does not have a farm. We know that the very rich buy farm land just to avoid inheritance tax and the argument that we need to allow this loophole to continue to let Jane or John inherit the family farm is ridiculous.
If they cannot afford the tax, the farm will be put up for sale and someone else will buy it and work it. Perhaps they will be more efficient, perhaps farm land will get cheaper as a result and many struggling young farmers without a family farm to inherit tax free will get on the first rung of the farming ladder.
I would like to leave my home to my relatives tax free, I am sure most people would but apparently our relatives can only have it after inheritance tax has been paid. Why is farming different?
The fact is that it isn’t, it has not only enjoyed huge subsidies for decades but huge tax breaks too and now they lecture us on how “we” don’t understand the countryside and the urban elite have it in for farming.
Just occasionally a word of gratitude for the billions we poor, city dwellers shower them with each and every year would be nice. But I expect the tractors are being cleaned and fuelled (with subsidised fuel don’t forget) to take to our streets in protest.
There is no logical argument for the farming industry’s IHT exemption at all, exempting large amounts of wealth from a wealth tax was always a mad distortion of the tax system and it needs to end.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
Well said Jonty. What other family business gets exemption from IHT so that it can be handed down to children tax free? Smaller farmers won't be affected and the big ones will just have to deal with it like the rest of us. I can think of at least one 'poor' farmer complaining about it, who has a Youtube channel all about his garage full of expensive sports and performance cars! The sale of a couple of those would probably cover his IHT liabilities after he's gone. I have no sympathy when families can't afford rent or a mortgage, when so many children live in poverty and foodbank usage is at an all time high.
your stupidity continues unabated. If parts of farms are sold off to pay IHT then farms will become smaller, less eficient and food more expensive. I will leave it simple so you can understand it.