Far right attempting to subvert the farmers protests in London.

Good discussion lads

Lots of good/interesting points made from different angles.

STW at its best

The people it will really hurt are the small to mid size family farms where the land is passed down generation to generation and to whom the value of the land is really irrelevant anyway.

How many small-medium size farms are worth over £1.3m though (assuming there’s a farmhouse on it, rising to £3m allowance inc. spousal etc.)? The BBC Verify article says only 35% of UK farms are valued at over £1m, I’d assume then they’re mostly medium-large farms (and likely just large farms once you get to £3m).

There’s probably only a handful of genuine family-owned-passed-down-through-the-generations farms that will really struggle with the IHT change (e.g. worth £1.5m with no spousal allowance to factor in but so cash poor that paying back £35k over 10 years would be impossible). Perhaps there is a way to help those family farms without providing a loop hole the wealthy landowners can’t exploit (not sure what that would be though) but I hope the government don’t just cave completely and not implement the main IHT changes.

Not sure Clarksons speech was that helpful frankly. Bit of climate change denial, ditto polluted rivers, dig at the BBC,  and also made it clear he hates the Labour government.

Righto.

Watching those massively entitled farmers in London today, I’m hoping the government will change their mind and implement the full 40% IHT rate, rather than the 50% tax break they’re giving them.

It seems like there are 2 problems. First, the value of the land is too high. I don’t know much about this, but some of the explanations above make sense. If someone can make significant money and/or savings by buying the land, whether or not it is worked then it pushes the cost up for everyone.

The other issue is that it seems to be pretty hard to make money from farming – as opposed to owning farmland. Supermarket practices must be a huge component in this. This source  suggests the value of supermarkets in the UK economy is 241 billion, while this link says UK farming contributed 13.7 billion to the economy last year. Perhaps farmers (and we, the customers) could push harder for reform there? I’m not sure if these figures are directly comparable, but it shows where the balance of power lies.

UK farming isn’t green?  Compared to what? Transporting your milk from across the continent? Flying your beef in from Brazil or lamb from New Zealand?

Loads of studies show that sea transport of food is usually a fairly  minor component in the environmental impact of food production. Rearing sheep in New Zealand is much less energy intensive than in the UK so it is more “environmentally friendly” to import the meat. Beef from slash and burn rainforests in Brazil less so, I’d imagine.

Milk is interesting – UK has the potential to produce relatively low-impact milk, but there are limitations on how much we can use. Exporting seems to be pretty big business – so we should not be critical of “food miles” and insist on insular self-reliance. The best way to get the most value out of food production is to capitalise on what we can do best and rely on trading partners to do the same.

I know there’s a section of society always very excited about the prospect of re-living WW2 and needing to be self-sufficient, but it’s not going to happen.

Since a lot of the anti- IHT change voices in the media are concerned about the loss of food production capacity, I thought I’d look at the degree to which we are  self-sufficient and how it has changed over time. 

It rises steadily post-war (when we were nowhere near self sufficiency) until the mid 80s, when it starts to decline, right about the time the IHT exemption was first introduced incidentally.

Again, in relation to the far right…

Outdoorsy clothes have been doing well.

Also, unfortunate banner under Tice…

The other issue is that it seems to be pretty hard to make money from farming – as opposed to owning farmland.

This is the bit I don’t understand?

How do you make money from farmland without farming it?

The vast majority will never get planning permission for any kind of development, although are the returns so great that if you buy up 1000 acres and only get housing planning for 10 acres, does it pay off?

It rises steadily post-war (when we were nowhere near self sufficiency) until the mid 80s, when it starts to decline, right about the time the IHT exemption was first introduced incidentally.

And incidentally when a greater choice of food across the seasons really started to be available (to ordinary folk).

FuzzyWuzzy

How many small-medium size farms are worth over £1.3m though (assuming there’s a farmhouse on it, rising to £3m allowance inc. spousal etc.)? The BBC Verify article says only 35% of UK farms are valued at over £1m, I’d assume then they’re mostly medium-large farms (and likely just large farms once you get to £3m).

I’m dubious of that figure from the BBC.  In a lot of the country, the farmhouse alone is probably £500K, and I bet a lot are closer to a million. Then there is equipment (tractor alone can be £100K plus drills sprayers etc), working buildings, livestock + the land itself at £10K an acre (average farm size 217 acres). You can be over 1.3 million very easily.

For reference, Harry Metcalf breaks down the figures on his own farm (500 acres) in a recent video on his farm channel and reckons it’d be worth close to 8 million.  He says you’d need around that size of farm to bring in around £60K a year.

It’s really tugging on my heartstrings listening to a multimillionaire TV presenter imploring the government to allow landowners sat on millions of pounds worth of assets to pass them on to their children without paying any tax.

Apparently Andrew Lloyd Webber was there too as he was also caught up in dodging tax by buying loads of land

Will nobody think of the multimillionaire musical writers?

bring in around £60K a year.

that presumably is disposable income after all outlay, including mortgage and loan payments etc. rather than gross income?

@FuzzyWuzzy

How many small-medium size farms are worth over £1.3m though (assuming there’s a farmhouse on it, rising to £3m allowance inc. spousal etc.)? The BBC Verify article says only 35% of UK farms are valued at over £1m, I’d assume then they’re mostly medium-large farms (and likely just large farms once you get to £3m).

The HMRC source for the article says 27% of inherited farms in 2021-2 were above £1m, but the vast majority would still be below the threshold once the various other reliefs are applied. Only 117 out of 1730 (7%) were above £2.5m. There are nearly 100,000 farms in the UK all together.

On the profits of farming – it looks like a huge proportion are making less than 25k Euros a year.

(this is just England)

The vast majority will never get planning permission for any kind of development, although are the returns so great that if you buy up 1000 acres and only get housing planning for 10 acres, does it pay off?

1acre plot near us sold for £900k a fair few years ago, fag packet maths says yes to your question. Looked on the private eye map of land held by offshore companies – most of the “farm land” near us is offshore owned & being infilled with housing developments slowly but surely.

How do you make money from farmland without farming it?

Buy land. Rent land to someone else who makes a pittance on it while taking all the risk.

For reference, Harry Metcalf breaks down the figures on his own farm (500 acres) in a recent video on his farm channel and reckons it’d be worth close to 8 million. He says you’d need around that size of farm to bring in around £60K a year.

I call BS.

What does he mean by “bring in around £60k a year”?

is that net profit after tax?

If so, how much of a wage has he and his family took?

He could have 5 family members working for the farm and they are all taking a 100k a year wage each?

The average farm size in the UK is about 200 acres. How do they survive if you need 500 to “bring in £60k”.

Well, if I was in any doubt as to what to think on this issue (I wasn’t, but hey) then the decent person’s rule of thumb has just been applied. See where the likes of Farage stand on the issue and take the other side. It has never failed.

This is a smokescreen. Actual farmers are being used by non-farming tax dodgers and vested interests. I suspect, when this law is enacted we will hear very little from real farmers going forwards, but they’ll forever be tainted with the association.

The proposed measures are not unfair.

Pity it had to come to this for one local farmer

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14057491/farmer-inheritance-tax-raid-killed-john-charlesworth.html

This is a bit like the poll tax riots but much posher.

Living in rural Cornwall my Facebook feed today is full of the wear wellies to support our farmers etc posts… I was starting to feel like I was missing something obvious as to why the farmers should be an exception.

It’s been great reading this thread & my initial thoughts remain. That farmers should be subject to IHT on amounts that are greater than the vast majority of us will ever see in our lifetime.

I call BS.

What does he mean by “bring in around £60k a year”?

is that net profit after tax?

If so, how much of a wage has he and his family took?

He could have 5 family members working for the farm and they are all taking a 100k a year wage each?

The average farm size in the UK is about 200 acres. How do they survive if you need 500 to “bring in £60k”.

100%. At best it is ignorance, but I suspect it is misrepresentation. I’d be interested to know what the true average margins at each major point down a farm’s P&L are.

If I had an £8 million pound asset but wanted to get more than £60K per year and better still not have to work at all I would just sell it.

Let’s see –  8,000,000 / 60,000 = 133   I think getting 60k a year for 133 years for doing nothing should do me.  I could even go mad and get £120,000 a year for 60 years as I doubt I will be living until 116.

@Tracey – That’s a tragedy for their family. However, I think it’s more to do with severe mental health issues than the budget.

His farm was a 70 acre farm in the Pennines, it would never of triggered any IHT. A call to his accountant would of cleared that up very quickly.

It’s the Daily Mail  stirring trouble again.

Pity it had to come to this for one local farmer

Utterly depressing. Especially as the actual details of the tax changes (rather than those blown up in the press by the likes of the DailyMail) would have meant his family need not have been effected at all by them.

Having seen what my next door neighbour went through caring for his wife with dementia… far more help is needed by people going through that.

Clarkson’s run in with Victoria Derbyshire:

https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1858853384033288622

Further to my post about – commented on a local FB thread asking why farmers shouldn’t pay IHT has resulted in a threat. So that’s fun.

Clarkson’s run in with Victoria Derbyshire:

“96% of farmers will be effected”

He could make his case without bullshit… or perhaps he couldn’t.

If it really was the case that, in effect, all farmers would be effected, I’d have been down there protesting as well.

Wealthy farmers won’t be able to directly pass on all their wealth held in land tax free anymore. It’s not an attack on farmers. It’s an adjustment to our quite minimal wealth taxes so that large estates are no longer exempt (but will still benefit from a large tax break, and methods of tax planning/minimisation).

I don’t understand why they expect to be treated differently from any other family business that is passed on.

I got bored reading the thread so apologies if this has been brought up, but it should be fairly obvious why farming is a special sort of business that needs to be handled differently.

Clarkson’s run in with Victoria Derbyshire:

All he’s doing is proving he’s a bell-end and a poor Farage impersonator

farming is a special sort of business that needs to be handled differently

They are handled differently. Still. Very advantageously. That advantage is being reduced for the very wealthiest of farm owners. That is all.

And outside inheritance tax, smaller farm owners and tenant farmers (most farmers I’ve known have been both… owning some land and renting some more) need more help… help to access markets, help with investment in machinery, help with finding workers, help with the unbalanced nature of food purchasing relationships, help with controlling disease and pests, help with creating added value though on site processing, help with restoring and protecting habitats… but, at the end of the day, the richest of land owners and their press owning peers shouldn’t be making the normal farmer feel put upon, or targeted, or neglected, or under appreciated as a smoke screen for protecting their own vast wealths from a reasonable about of taxation.

I got bored reading the thread so apologies if this has been brought up, but it should be fairly obvious why farming is a special sort of business that needs to be handled differently.

Not really. That’s the same silly argument they used changing pension limits for NHS Doctors – who are often in the top 1% of earners in the country – then saying that the new limits are there for everyone. How can you drop £50k per annum in your pension pot if you earn £30k and have kids to feed?

Further to my post about – commented on a local FB thread asking why farmers shouldn’t pay IHT has resulted in a threat. So that’s fun.

Predictable, given the audience.

Pity it had to come to this for one local farmer

A tragedy yes, but not the fault of the tax change or the chancellor. At this point in time the best thing I could do for my family financially would be to ‘accidentally’ fall under the wheels of a truck while out on my bike. They would get the best part of 500k in life insurance, the mortgage would be paid off and my kids paid through university. Would I do it? No because I know they would rather not have the money and still have me around and I suspect that farmer’s family think exactly the same. That farmer just made a very poor misguided decision (and obviously there may be other factors we don’t know about) and now his family are suffering because of that decision, not because the chancellor changed the law.

.

Well, if I was in any doubt as to what to think on this issue (I wasn’t, but hey) then the decent person’s rule of thumb has just been applied. See where the likes of Farage stand on the issue and take the other side. It has never failed.

Yep – very much this.

Interesting he’s graced us with his presence now that his orange messiah has been elected.  Suspect he didn’t want to be upstaged by the likes of Tice and Clarkson.  Or maybe he just wants to stand up for farmers just like he did for the Fishermen when he was a MEP…

Clarkson and Farage have one thing in common, they only care about themselves and the grift.

This is the bit I don’t understand?

How do you make money from farmland without farming it?

Have you read the thread? Same as any appreciating  assets…. Buy it, hold it, sell it later on at a higher price. See also BTC, Rolls Royce shares etc

Or even betterer, give it to your kids to avoid IHT, so they can sell it for ur even more.

I’m dubious of that figure from the BBC. In a lot of the country, the farmhouse alone is probably £500K, and I bet a lot are closer to a million. Then there is equipment (tractor alone can be £100K plus drills sprayers etc), working buildings, livestock + the land itself at £10K an acre (average farm size 217 acres). You can be over 1.3 million very easily.

That’s a fair point, I’ve been assuming the figures are for selling the farm as a going concern inc. livestock and equipment, if that’s not the case and it’s just for the land and buildings on it that does change things (presumably there’s a trusted reference that confirms which it is?).

The various other examples being talked about; £4m, £8m and £10m farms – as others have said, I just don’t get why you wouldn’t sell up and live off the cash/investments instead, rather than working so hard for less than minimum wage. I get that “farming’s in the blood” but as a kid I didn’t want to be working on computers in an office for 40+ years, we can’t always have the careers & lives we want… I also suspect a lot of those people really grafting on farms for pennies are either employed labourers or have leased the farm so wouldn’t be impacted by the IHT change anyway.

The other argument about farmer’s caring about feeding the nation I don’t really believe, that’s just BS for newspaper headlines & placards. For sure we need farmers to be producing what they do but given so many have been struggling to do that for years without the IHT change there’s other issues that needing addressing to fix that

Farage made it then so I guess there is some far right there, at least he feels safe there not like Clacton where he’s been advised not to visit.

I wondered how many farms there was in his constituency… seems like there might be a few but most excitingly we have found out where Jonathan Gullis was bred…

For reference, Harry Metcalf breaks down the figures on his own farm (500 acres) in a recent video on his farm channel and reckons it’d be worth close to 8 million.  He says you’d need around that size of farm to bring in around £60K a year.

Define “bring in”.

How much ‘salary’, accommodation/utilities or vehicles have been taken out before we get down to £60k?

And imagine the lottery question; do you want £60k a year for life or a one-off £8 million – no one will take the £60k.

Actual farmers are being used by non-farming tax dodgers and vested interests. I suspect, when this law is enacted we will hear very little from real farmers going forwards, but they’ll forever be tainted with the association.

I think is the thing here. Perceived entitlement and prejudice on both sides are happily fanning the flames. Another division  sown in order to conquer.

One silver lining to possibly focus on with this weird UK culture war we seem to be in is that many of the leading lights are typically gammony old men who will probably be 6ft under in a few years. They represent the past not the future.