>The Treasury expects that the changes to inheritance tax , as well as changes to Business Tax Relief, will raise £230m in 2026-27, the first year of their introduction. This rises to £520m by the end of the forecast in 2029-30.
The government said we need this money for the NHS, so let’s put this in those terms.
£520m equates to about 29 hours of NHS activity.
penguinsfrommars on
My understanding was that the majority of farmers’ wealth is in land. Unless it exempts land, their descendants would be paying off the inheritance tax by selling the land. Can’t run a farm like that.
It’s weird the contempt people have for farmers. Gruelling work, essential for our country’s food security… they’re not exactly sitting around doing fuck all.
Forte69 on
It’s a tricky one. People buying up land to avoid tax will have driven up land prices and reduced food production. In the long run, this tax should make things better for farming.
But paying inheritance tax with money you don’t have is also a problem. It’s interesting that the estimates vary from 500 people affected to 70,000 people affected.
Maybe the inheritance tax should be payable only when the land is sold, with no expiry date for how long ago you inherited it. Probably too difficult to enforce that though.
Any move that upset very wealthy people is going to lead to coordinated media attacks on the government, so it’s worth bearing that in mind…
Sluggybeef on
Sam Kirkham, who specialises in agriculture at Albert Goodman accountants, says “people look at the value of farms and think the farmers must be wealthy”.
But she says if the farm passes down to the next generation to continue to produce food, they never get to realise that capital.
And she adds farm profits are too low to meet the additional cost of inheritance tax.
From an expert in the industry
LordSolstice on
This is pretty disingenuous imo.
They’ve presented it as farms per year, rather than the total number of farms that would be affected, making the number seem a lot smaller.
They’re also basing this entirely off of one single tax year, which a very poor sample size. They should be looking at a 10 year average of the number of farms inherited.
shrewd-2024 on
If you want people like Dyson and Holch Povlson to pay tax here this has to happen, and it’s not just them. Povlson for example owns 220k acres in Scotland and pays his tax in Denmark. Dyson farming owns land worth over £554m which was previously liable to zero inheritance tax, he’s having a whinge now because under the new terms he will have to pay 20%.
Street_Adagio_2125 on
How about we tax the ever living shit out of anyone trying to sell an inherited farm
bonkerz1888 on
There’s a serious issue with land prices in the UK if land is valued in the millions but in reality it is only able to generate £20k each year.
It’s like a public company that is valued at $1b yet they only post annual profits of $100k.
Just another glaring sign that there’s major fucking problems with modern economies. They literally no longer make sense other than on paper, to the benefit of very few individuals.
VivariumPond on
Hey would you look at that, the Derbyshire interview everyone was salivating over a few hours ago turned out to be using highly contested numbers
cjc1983 on
I saw a farmer being interviewed who had a herd of 400 cows. Those alone have an asset value of over £1m. A combine harvester is £200-500k.
It’s very easy to see how the government’s claim of only a few hundred farms being affected is clearly bullsh*t.
I don’t know what the answer is, maybe only apply tax to non-land assets… and maybe give farmers 20+ years (a generation) to plan for it’s implementation so they can budget for the cost.
evil-kaweasel on
Stupid question, maybe. Say I have a farm that would fall under this inheritance tax, and I’m getting on in years and want to leave it to by son. Could I not just sell it to him for a pound or something and then only have the legal fees to cover the sale as the exspense?
It’s just something that seems an obvious loophole to the whole situation. This is why I guess it’s a stupid question because surely it wouldn’t be that easy to get around. Otherwise, there would be no fuss.
McDeathUK on
When a fact check has a range of 500 to 70000 its not really a fact check.
I think personally on the subject we should look at ‘is the farm a working farm’ – if it IS its exempt no matter what the value.
Note this is only a ‘off hand’ comment, not meant for a deep dive and scoffing comments. I personally see no reason to even touch this rule change. If it IS only ‘500’ as the government think then its still not worth the hassle.
Like the ‘winter fuel’, too many good folks get caught in the fallout.. and even though i know most of reddit loves to punish those they dont like – using the minority of any group to justify an argument for the majority.. we should not mess around with anything that is a food provider.. not now, not ever
the_hillman on
This is fairer taxation in action. It caps tax relief for only the largest farm estates while keeping protections for smaller, genuine family farms – who really aren’t the problem here. Too often, the wealthiest are taking advantage of these breaks, driving up land prices and making it harder for new farmers to get into the game. In my opinion, tax reliefs need to be there supporting the real farmers, not as a scheme for generational wealth building tax avoiding elites to profit from.
13 Comments
>The Treasury expects that the changes to inheritance tax , as well as changes to Business Tax Relief, will raise £230m in 2026-27, the first year of their introduction. This rises to £520m by the end of the forecast in 2029-30.
The government said we need this money for the NHS, so let’s put this in those terms.
£520m equates to about 29 hours of NHS activity.
My understanding was that the majority of farmers’ wealth is in land. Unless it exempts land, their descendants would be paying off the inheritance tax by selling the land. Can’t run a farm like that.
It’s weird the contempt people have for farmers. Gruelling work, essential for our country’s food security… they’re not exactly sitting around doing fuck all.
It’s a tricky one. People buying up land to avoid tax will have driven up land prices and reduced food production. In the long run, this tax should make things better for farming.
But paying inheritance tax with money you don’t have is also a problem. It’s interesting that the estimates vary from 500 people affected to 70,000 people affected.
Maybe the inheritance tax should be payable only when the land is sold, with no expiry date for how long ago you inherited it. Probably too difficult to enforce that though.
Any move that upset very wealthy people is going to lead to coordinated media attacks on the government, so it’s worth bearing that in mind…
Sam Kirkham, who specialises in agriculture at Albert Goodman accountants, says “people look at the value of farms and think the farmers must be wealthy”.
But she says if the farm passes down to the next generation to continue to produce food, they never get to realise that capital.
And she adds farm profits are too low to meet the additional cost of inheritance tax.
From an expert in the industry
This is pretty disingenuous imo.
They’ve presented it as farms per year, rather than the total number of farms that would be affected, making the number seem a lot smaller.
They’re also basing this entirely off of one single tax year, which a very poor sample size. They should be looking at a 10 year average of the number of farms inherited.
If you want people like Dyson and Holch Povlson to pay tax here this has to happen, and it’s not just them. Povlson for example owns 220k acres in Scotland and pays his tax in Denmark. Dyson farming owns land worth over £554m which was previously liable to zero inheritance tax, he’s having a whinge now because under the new terms he will have to pay 20%.
How about we tax the ever living shit out of anyone trying to sell an inherited farm
There’s a serious issue with land prices in the UK if land is valued in the millions but in reality it is only able to generate £20k each year.
It’s like a public company that is valued at $1b yet they only post annual profits of $100k.
Just another glaring sign that there’s major fucking problems with modern economies. They literally no longer make sense other than on paper, to the benefit of very few individuals.
Hey would you look at that, the Derbyshire interview everyone was salivating over a few hours ago turned out to be using highly contested numbers
I saw a farmer being interviewed who had a herd of 400 cows. Those alone have an asset value of over £1m. A combine harvester is £200-500k.
It’s very easy to see how the government’s claim of only a few hundred farms being affected is clearly bullsh*t.
I don’t know what the answer is, maybe only apply tax to non-land assets… and maybe give farmers 20+ years (a generation) to plan for it’s implementation so they can budget for the cost.
Stupid question, maybe. Say I have a farm that would fall under this inheritance tax, and I’m getting on in years and want to leave it to by son. Could I not just sell it to him for a pound or something and then only have the legal fees to cover the sale as the exspense?
It’s just something that seems an obvious loophole to the whole situation. This is why I guess it’s a stupid question because surely it wouldn’t be that easy to get around. Otherwise, there would be no fuss.
When a fact check has a range of 500 to 70000 its not really a fact check.
I think personally on the subject we should look at ‘is the farm a working farm’ – if it IS its exempt no matter what the value.
Note this is only a ‘off hand’ comment, not meant for a deep dive and scoffing comments. I personally see no reason to even touch this rule change. If it IS only ‘500’ as the government think then its still not worth the hassle.
Like the ‘winter fuel’, too many good folks get caught in the fallout.. and even though i know most of reddit loves to punish those they dont like – using the minority of any group to justify an argument for the majority.. we should not mess around with anything that is a food provider.. not now, not ever
This is fairer taxation in action. It caps tax relief for only the largest farm estates while keeping protections for smaller, genuine family farms – who really aren’t the problem here. Too often, the wealthiest are taking advantage of these breaks, driving up land prices and making it harder for new farmers to get into the game. In my opinion, tax reliefs need to be there supporting the real farmers, not as a scheme for generational wealth building tax avoiding elites to profit from.