What tax would Blackrock pay if they buy up all the land (or houses)? The company does not die and so will not ‘pass on’ their portfolio. So everything is biased against hard working people.
This is the point. It's why Starmer even tweeted a video praising Blackrock and encouraging them to "invest" in the UK. The whole point is to destroy British farmers and sell the land to Blackrock and international investors.
There is inheritance tax on the blackrock shareholders, at the full 40% without the £1 million relief that farmers get. So the British taxpayer will get a much better deal from Blackrock owning the farm land than from farmers owning it.
Possibly. But there have been huge protests by farmers all over the European Union in the last couple of years so clearly the problems they face are also faced across the continent, and British farmers are in fact a bit late to the party.
@@jeza-jezaro My points are that (a) there is a general crisis in farming throughout Europe linked to costs and (b) that this has nothing to do with Brexit. What the particular legislation was that ignited the protests in each given country doesn't matter.
@@patavinity1262ha ha ha that old chestnut eu Farmers were protesting while our farmers were in the EU ! They don’t give a monkeys what leaning their governments are they fight for what they want and got those things for our farmers too ! The difference is our Farmers didn’t protest against their tory Brexit they didn’t protest about their Tory southern hemisphere trade deals and they haven’t protested about supermarkets under the Tories ! As this guy just said fifth generation means they used to pay full inheritance tax and lived through it !
Lots of us are angry about the way that distribution of public finances affects us personally, but the rest of us don't have the entire chaos making right wing press shouting our case
Too true - don't think that the new statesman has been up in arms about the low salaries of carers!!! Don't be brainwashed by this very biased view of our country - this is not an objective company imo
How much attention does this need? I mean when tax hikes were pushed up over the last 15 years, no one said a peep. Then when the very wealthy tax dodgers are asked to pay Tax through inheritance, the media goes crazy.
Because this is a tax which threatens the nation’s food security in the long-term (which is very important, especially in the context of an increasingly fractious world).
Farmers need to be getting paid a fairer price for their products as well. The big supermarkets haven’t helped the whole food system is a mess. If they got a better price for their produce then they could afford the tax.
Ekes sick of hearing about the supermarkets etc they have done nothing about it or Brexit or trade deals Why ? Because it was the Tories in charge ! Straight out on the streets as soon as they are asked to pay half wack tax ! The smell of entitlement from them is higher than pig 💩! I wish someone would give my son £3 million for doing nothing ! Why his grandad fought for king and country pre ww2 and was a pow during ww2 his great grandad gave his life in ww1 !
@@daraorourke5798yes and he is completely wrong! The current price structure will stay the same or get worse. Will Dunn explains between 12:00 and 12:45, I don‘t believe you understood that. The IHT will force parting out of family farms. Even a few hundred would be too many.
The rest of us are shocked that people with assets over £2,375,000 where paying no tax before. Meanwhile the 46% of farmers who cannot afford farmland, ie tenant farmers are leased with this. It means the billionaire land owners who own much of Britains farmland may not find it quite so lucrative to keep buying it up. As for hobbyist tax avoiders like Clarkson, don’t get me started. I will now wait for some brain washed troll to come back with an insult.
Farming is a very marginal, risky business that requires huge capital. The way this has been implemented has been so indiscriminate and will result in genuine damage to the industry. Large corporations will buy the land forcibly sold to cover this tax.
It would take most people over 100 years to earn that much money. If they sold it for that they could pay themselves £68k for their entire working life. As far as I’m concerned let the farmers pay with the land. If they really want to keep farming it they don’t need to own it.
@@edwardbernthal160 "do you rent or do you own your house?" It doesn;t matter. Assuming that he owns his house and it is worth more than £400,000, then his children will have to pay inheritance tax. Why should farmers be any different?
@@tonyb9735 Do you know why I was asking Jay that question? All respect to your answer but it has nothing what so ever to do with the reason behind why I am asking Jay, rent or own.
Actual family farmers use the 7 year rule and pass their land down to the next generation for absolutely no IHT. This is available to absolutely everyone. The people most consumed are the billionaires that have bought up thousands of hectares of farm land, massively inflating the cost of that land, reducing the competitiveness of British farming. Their children have absolutely no interest in becoming a farming. This part was well covered, but no mention of the 7 year rule. It's laughable that the electoral consequences were bought up. If Labour lost every rural constituency they have their majority would be down to 150 at worst.
What about the 85 year old owner on their last legs that won’t make 7 years? The best professional succession advice up until the budget was pass on the asset on death. They have no time. It’s a cruel heartless tax. Many of these older people are considering suicide before next April.
@@cornishcoastalfarming2517 Why would any one wait until they are 85 for IHT planning? Why not have passed on to the next generation 10-20 years before? And if they don't want to farm then all we are talking about is a rich land owner.
You just take an insurance policy in case your estate has to pay inheritance tax. Personally I would abolish Inheritance tax paid by estates. Instead beneficiaries should pay income tax on what they receive from an estate at 20% above £10,000.
“They own £10m in land but only get £24k per year salary” most people get £24k per year with £0 owned in land. The difference is the asset owner CHOOSES to earn £24k, the rest of us are FORCED to work for £24k.
They do not 'choose' to be farmers, that way of life is chosen for them, a bit like being born into a religion, it is what it is. I think you will find that 'most people' do not earn £24k per year, the average salary in the UK is higher than that, however, the advantage a farmer has, is that their £24k comes with no housing costs, so your point has merit, but not in the way that you framed it. That said, if someone is on £24k per year, how many hours per week will they work, we know the answer, it's about thirty-five, whilst a farmer is around ninety hours per week.
It doesn't close it though. They still get tax free under £1m and 50% relief above. It still represents a great place to invest non- farming wealth to shield it from inheritance tax. All this policy will do is force farmers to sell the thing they need to trade
Indeed such good arguments to pass on the family farm to the family as a lifetime gift to keep it as a family farm. And not wait until death, but pass it on, even only partially, when the kids themselves start working the family farm. Survive 7 years and nobody needs to pay a penny!
Oh FFS: ‘we need loads of assets and tax loopholes because we can’t make a profit otherwise’ Try that argument in any other sector of the economy. Absolutely pathetic and Andrew Marr should know a lot better. Oh, and if you don’t want it to be called a Right -wing protest, don’t have Clarkson as your poster boy
@@edwardbernthal160 A loop hole suggests that farmers are benefitting from a tax advantage as an oversight or unintended consequence of tax law. Whereas in reality the rule was specifically designed for farmers with the benefit they are getting the absolute intended consequence, in the same way a pension benefits the owner of the pension, it's designed that way deliberately. If someone contributes to a pension you don't say they're using a tax loop hole to benefit do you? The clue is in the title, it is Agricultural Property Relief. This loop hole horse manure needs to stop.
Andrew, Farmers as a whole voted for 14 years for the party that kept the tax loophole open that caused their farmland to increase in value. Even now, they are marching side by side with the wealthy who pushed their land value up. In no way can you say "This is not their fault". Also, the hardships they felt over brexit? They voted for that... This black hole has to be paid by someone, are we going to keep on msking teachers, doctors, nurses and firemen pay?
The tax changes will raise approx. £500m. This is the same amount the British taxpayer sends overseas to foreign farmers. So here's an idea: scrap subsidising foreign farmers entirely and support our own farmers instead!
Unless you were looking over every farmers shoulder when they were in the polling booth putting there x in a box , how could you possibly know? Figures I’ve seen from pollsters shows 58% at most said they voted for Brexit and considering the average age of a farmer is over 60, fits how the nation voted as a whole. If it was possible to put what comes out of your mouth in my muck spreader, I’d have an outstanding crop of cabbages next year.
@@paulrobinson5357 I recall seeing many Ukip posters in the fields up and down the country in 2015/16. Farmers and fishermen fell for Ukip propaganda and voted for Brexit against their own interests.
@@reinholdmueller4882 some obviously did like in all sectors of the voting population in fact I do know of the odd one who said that they did but I have also spoken to many many farmers who said they had voted Remain. I also saw Remain posters in fields. I also know of at least a couple of large farming concerns that put sizeable amounts of money into Remain funding . It’s still one heck of an assumption to say ALL farmers voted Brexit and as a consequence should be punished. Which even as someone who did vote Remain find the thought of ‘being punished’ for doing so abhorrent; after all, we do live in a democracy, don’t we?
@@oliverdesvaux These farmers are only putting £20-£30k through their books. Get real. If they're prepared to work for less than minimum wage then it is they that are delusional
@ you’re falling for the govt trap. Turning on the common man and woman who are your neighbours and you have the most in common with, instead of focusing on the fact the royals pay no inheritance tax and the civil servants still get their gold plated pension and benefits like the mp’s….
No they don't! Treasury figures are correct. Farmers are being taken for a ride by wealthy non-farm owners trying to avoid inheritance taxes. LABOUR SHOULD STAND FIRM, 20% tax is too generous
Sorry that is not correct, the Treasury figures are utter rubbish and they are city dwellers who have no grasp of financial realities. This is policy by people who have never run a business let alone a farm and just look at numbers on a spreadsheet, detached from the reality of what those numbers mean in real life. If you want cheap food to internationally high standards, support farmers. If you shopped in say the US you would have considerably lower food standards and your food on average would cost you 50% more. If this policy goes through you will destroy family farms in this country and we will all be worse off.
Mate I don’t think you’ve thought this through… we’re taking about taxing the critical infrastructure that maintains the country’s food security. The ‘wealth’ of farmers is tied up in assets that serve the common good of the British people and if we make it economically non viable to invest in these assets then how will we ensure the longevity of our food security? You’re inadvertently fighting in black rock and Monsanto’s corner… this 20% tax will be a one off payment - as farmers are forced to sell land to pay it, private equity will snap it up and forever remove it from private ownership and IT will never be paid on it again.
If you are asset rich - you are still rich. Restrict any relief only to passing it on to working farmers in the same family. On sale - you pay the tax - like everyone else.
No, it isn't about 'no one wants to pay for any of it', it was just explained to you - this is a fiscal policy that will hit the wrong people, and risks having all kinds of knock on negative effects for a group of people already under a huge amount of strain. Not to mention, said people's labour and output is incredibly important for the country's well being and economic health as a whole.
Rachel Reeves has got it all wrong. She should listen to this podcast. However, government antipathy by all British parties against farmers (as well as the idiocy of DEFRA) has been clear to me since the early 1990s. I used to teach at the oldest agricultural college in the world (Cirencester) but in 1994 I saw the writing on the wall and moved to the other side of the Irish Sea. I have never regretted the change, though Ireland has been following the UK's lead for some time now. However, I am grateful for 30 years in a better environment for farmers.
This was a very intelligent and nuanced conversation. Interestingly, the comment section is full of people who are really struggling with any level of detail, up to and including ‘serves them right for voting Brexit.’
£24,000 a year is that all found ! So food energy vehicle ( £100,000 Range Rover ?) fuel ? Clothing ? Footwear ? Rent free ? Maintenance on the property free ? Council tax ? I assume that £24,000 is trouser money ? Glad you changed from farmers to Land owners ! We have 20 Dukes who own 1 million acres between them ! I assume they don’t live in a 2 up 2 down terraced ! I would love someone to give my son 1,000 acres and a house for nothing ! Just well done your grandad was a pow in ww2 forced Labour down a mine served before ww2 all round the empire ! He didn’t come home to even a house ! The smell of entitlement is stronger than pig 💩
Could the Treasury make a rule that IHT would only be payable if the farm was sold to a third party outside direct descendents / immediate family members or for reasons other than a continuation of existing business i.e. working farm land. This would also capture the super wealthy and their descendants when they try to realise their asset. The IHT standard rate of 40% should apply to everyone and every business equally.
The question was 'why the discrepancy between government and the NFU regarding the number of farms affected' and what was the answer? Mr Dunn launched into a long-winded explanation of what the new rules are but did not answer the question asked so, what is the answer?
Well said Andrew and Will. I'm from a farming background. It's so good that someone from your spectrum of the politicle divide gets it. So very well argued and understood. Thank you both.
Agricultural land with a five bed detached house whose equivalent would cost you over 25 years £2 million in mortgage repayments. So that makes your £24,000 income more palatable. As this tax break is less than 40 years old. How were farms taxed at death if the farmer prior to that? Is there any evidence that family farms are better than farms owned by limited companies? I remember when the farmers said that banning fox hunting would result in every horse being shot and Foxhounds dying out. That never happened. So will farming stop, will families not be able to pass on their farms to the next generation? I doubt it.
your confusing landed gentry estates with the fox hunting ban. most farmers that grow or produce food have no horses. Farming Explained on RUclips goes into detail about that and many more topics related to farming.
@@alastairatcheson1407 And alot of land barons do not farm food produce instead using it as a vehicle to avoid their tax obligations. Selectiveness 101
Unfortunately this sounds like a comment of a misinformed urbanite. Look at America as a model. Corporate farming dominates, production higher and more efficient. Animal welfare lower, environmental impact higher, food quality lower. The other thing to consider, if corporate farms become the standard here, that would become a very powerful lobbying group prioritising wealth over things like welfare, quality and the environment. Try and have nuance to your argument. Conflating fox hunting with farming is a null point.
Nice to see a balanced and INFORMED discussion about the new tax from non-farmers. Andrew makes a great point about the importance of farms passing down each generation. The knowledge and technical understanding we build from an early age is invaluable when taking on the business. Most livestock farmers begin there apprenticeships in animal husbandry from about the age of 5! Its one of the fundamental reasons we have some the highest welfare and sustainability standards in the world. One thing I would add is that farming isn't just hard work, its hard technically as well, its constantly evolving and you are always learning and having to adapt. As my dad always says, there is no blueprint for farming. It seems many people still have a very romanticised and simplistic view of the agricultural industry which leads to a lack of empathy.
Can I suggest that government has a more intelligent and discerning approach to this tax. We need to tax wealthy people buying up farmland to avoid inheritance tax - that’s obvious. It is this that has inflated agricultural land prices and dragged more farmers into this new tax trap. I think people understand the position of real working farmers who work extremely hard for relatively small incomes (when you consider the hours worked required by farming). We need the real working farmers in our community in the same way we need many other aspects of working society. We don’t need huge tracts of land owned by wealthy people to avoid taxation and which is not used effectively. Another pressing problem is the food processing industry - which itself owns the biggest and most intensively run farms, and turns our ultra processed foods at the end of the production process. Anyway - should not inheritance tax be levied at the point of asset disposal? Until the asset is cashed in - there is no actual financial gain.
Rich people from cities are buying in the country and gentrifying the place, pricing farmers out. Just like Air BnB in Cornwall. Prices have gone nuts. Local people forced out. Wake up!
The only way for farmers to compensate for losing 20% of their farms every generation is to increase their prices to the public. The only way to guarantee that this can happen is to halt the free market in food and insist that the UK supermarkets must buy UK food stocks before importing.
When you say deep anger, there just isn’t. You report it like this, and make it sound massive… it’s shallow anger, from a small number of very very wealthy people.
"it’s shallow anger, from a small number of very very wealthy people." You obviously didn't listen to the podcast which confirmed that most farmers are cash poor but asset rich and also the fact that agricultural land is not actually the same as owning a large mansion with a pony paddock. But hey, enjoy your ideologically induced ignorance whilst congratulating yourself on how virtuous you are.
@@Schiltron I listened to something about people cash poor and asset rich, not cash poor and asset poor. If you own you land and hour outright and owe nothing and your income is low, it’s likely not low in relation to everyone else, because it’s all expendable money.
@@Schiltron it’s not ideological ignorance just because you disagree with it. It’s an economic opinion on what I view as sensible and fundamentally necessary economic police desire to change outlooks and attitudes on what we should protect, who has to pay money, and where money should go. It’s an opinion formed reading economics, learning about history, keeping up to date with movements in the world, picturing where we are heading with wealthy accumulation, and then influenced by the fact I went to a privet school, with hordes of farmers/farmers sons, several of whom are now protesting a modest tax rise on the wealth, while I know exactly what they have and own and the lives they live. It’s come from being from London, seeing the reality of the majority of peoples lives and comparing it to those farmers, who are happy to protest now when measures are introduced to stop wealth entrenchment, but who wouldn’t complain about or protest about Brexit, something far more damaging to their take home each year, and to the very institution of British farming. Excuse me if I don’t care much that my friends in-laws for example, who live in something between an actual castle and a country mansion, are now going to have to pay half the normal rate of inheritance tax on everything they own over the value of some £3 million.
Why should farmers alone be exempt from inheritance tax? That exemption meant that buying farms became a loophole for very wealthy people to avoid paying inheritance tax. The problem, as it always seems to be, is that the very wealthy people don't want to pay a socially responsible share of tax.
Labour are trying to balance the books, so if farmers are unhappy that they are being punished by having to pay more tax, can they suggest who should pay more to achieve or, indeed, share the government's aim!
Wow the people in the comments really didn’t listen to what Andrew Marr was saying…Farmers are not your normal wealthy people. They are literally providing food for the nation (for a measely sum) so maybe we should do what we can to…I don’t know…keep food in our supermarkets…?
There is a complete difference between the asset and the amount a farm earns. Many work 90-100 hour weeks in all weathers to produce the food you eat. The equivalent income is less tha minimum wage. If you want I can arrange a job for you on a farm for a year, and you can tell me what you think after that.
Why does it matter how much their assets are worth if they’re never intending to sell them and those assets are income producing and are necessary for them to make a living? It’s not like they’re sat on £3m of gold bullion
@@downbeat5504 All you're saying is that their business isn't viable. If it's not viable then SELL your asset and move on to something profitable. "Asset rich, cash poor" isn't a real thing, all it means is "I don't want to liquidate my assets to pay the same tax as everyone else". Well boohoo.
@@bena7519 Because it's essentially a tax avoidance scheme for the wealthy. That's why. If they want to avoid the tax pass on the estate to children with enough time like ANY OTHER FAMILY BUSINESS.
I had a friend at uni who was a farmers daughter. She constantly protested these same things about being wealthy but low income. Yet somehow the family owned a second home, she regularly made luxury purchases (a new kayak being the most memorable), then wouldn't chip in for shared meals because she claimed she couldn't afford it as a 'low income' farmer. Ever since then I've found it very hard not to be sceptical of any similar claims.
Farmers need to be paid better. The supermarkets have them at gunpoint. Even the manufacturers of equipment can be bad. If farming actually made money then inheritance wouldn't be a problem. Apart from morrisons they are all making record profits. Cost of greed. 1 million if you're a single parent/farmer. 3 million if a couple. Yet there are many Tennant farmers that would love their own farm but the land is owned by generational land owners. This all comes back to greedy corporations
Farmers want to be part of world free trade. They voted Tory and Brexit to get it. If small farms are uneconomic then they are eaten up by, usually bigger, more efficient ones. This has been going on since the Agricultural Revolution, so around 275 years.
Globalisation also has a lot to do with it, and this is related to the decline of British manufacturing. If cheaper goods can be accessed from other countries produced by workers who are paid less, then they will tend to dominate the market.
@@patavinity1262I'm a manufacturing engineer in aviation. Every company I've worked for wants the planning (instructions) to a point where they can grab anyone off the street to build or assemble that part. They do not want to pay for skilled people, they don't want to pay for me! Capitalism is out of control. The billionaire owners/shareholders largely don't care. I've sat in meetings with ceo's referring complex and life critical aircraft parts as sausages. They don't care about your safety, they care about money. What worries me with this move is more corporations owning the country, this time the land. Also UK companies are awful. 0 interest in investing in developing apprentices, people or their own products. Hense British Leyland etc. Accountants shouldn't run manufacturing firms.
not one million if you a single parent. you still get the reliefs attached to the farmhouse. 1.5 million tax free. Also if you are a seperated couple who both owned shares in the business the 3 million would still be the correct figure.
Like any new government with new policies being enacted and require a deal of fine tuning yes farmers are used to having a tax free way of passing on wealth and often farmers will utilise capital to buy land wether intending to farm it or rent or set aside with the over and above their normal farm size to take advantage of the relief. There are of course wealthy individuals who aren't really farmers utilising this relief to pass on generational wealth just like they were using pensions in this way. I think a good deal of fine tuning is required as what size of farm is actually fully viable and profitable? And what is it worth as a whole entity animals houses machinery etc I suspect its a fair bit more than £3M however farmers can still gift assets as long as they survive for 7 or more years so perhaps some HMRC working with the farming community could come up with improved proposals that family generational owned farms can utilise.
Giving it seven years before applying would help. At least on something with a higher threshold. Not impressed by the double cab pickup tax hikes and BPR rules either. The IHT DC pension changes probably not affecting them much at least.
Generations of non tax payers land owners who receive lots of relief, complaining about paying their share (less than their share in reality), and it’s not about tenant farmers.
Thank you as ever for a great discussion! I’m puzzled at what happened before Thatcher brought in this avoidance of inheritance tax in 1984. Life presumably carried on. What seems to have happened since is that a valuable allowance for genuine farming families has been high jacked by city slickers for simple tax avoidance purposes. I think Will made the crucial comment that “HMRC ought to be able to flush out these people”. It may well be true that Starmer/Reeves have their eyes on 500 tax avoiders but unwittingly they have ensnared a huge number of genuine farming families. This tax does seem like the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut. Why, oh why, are Starmer/Reeves so stupid in their tax choices? Can’t someone please take them aside and teach them some common sense.
I very much doubt Reeves had this measure in mind when Labour got voted in, she's not that bright. This has the stamp of someone in the Treasury with a bee in their bonnet, and Reeves has fallen in the hole they dug for her. Another ill thought through measure. They're very good at that
Andrew Webb the stench of entitlement is overwhelming! It’s higher than pig 💩why do they think themselves better than any other tax payer ! My father served before and during ww2 he was a pow then sent forced Labour down a coal mine ! He couldn’t didn’t get a council house until 1969 ! He lost his father in ww1 ! What the feck do farmers think they have the god given right to avoid tax that everyone else pays ! If they can’t get bye on supermarket deals then get out and do something about it! Ahhhh it’s no longer a Tory government
It's not a "messaging" problem, it's a stupid thoughtless decision problem with no consideration of collateral damage. I'm literally wondering how many elderly farmers will commit suicide before the cut off date to leave their farms to their families. Took me literally seconds to consider that. It's like they've never met or actually talked to farmers. Their whole life is about passing on the business, that they often inherited themselves.
@@hexrag5901 So much else has changed since then, not least CAP subsidies! On what basis can you attribute cheaper food to a tax break to farmers, please?
Andrew Marr is absolutely right. Farm land value is different....In fact whilst it is being farmed it's value (return on investment) is just about ZERO. Its value is pushed up by wealthy who are not really farmers.
Farmers can be angry, but who isn't when they're asked to pay up the share fair of taxes, but the British Public supports this TAX and this is evident as Labour's support has increased since they announced it and the protests.
At last a balanced, fair report by Marr and the New Statesman. The majority of farmers are not cash rich. There is an ignorant, classist view that if you have a large house and acres of agricultural land, you are deemed to be wealthy. If the government want to get a grip on tax avoidance, why not ring fence and identify those who bought land for tax avoidance, rather than paint all farmers with the same brush and tax the vulnerable. This is another real issue caused by a budget with no proper planning or thought. Will Labour show some guts and reverse these spiteful decisions, especially in view of the relatively petty amounts drawn for the exchequer.
If you own 'A large house and acres of agricultural land' then by definition you ARE well off. You are literally sitting on and living in an asset you CAN draw money on! No-one in today's Britain that has those things is in any way financially at least, vulnerable.
@@zxbzxbzxb1you clearly have no clue how much tractors (and all the attachments) cost these days. It's quite easy for a family farm with land, buildings, and machinery to be over their threshold. It's exactly as unfair as charging IHT on someone in London inheriting a small terraced house because the price of their family home has gone silly because of property speculators and double taxation on their parents pension savings (IHT + Income tax). It's why corporations grow massive and family businesses go bust. Corporations don't die so don't pay inheritance tax.
So farmers don’t have wealth because off the tax breaks they have wealth because off the land value on the farm and the value off the machinery that is needed to work the land most off which is debt as it’s financed by loans. Also the caveats for the IHT for agriculture is not 3 million it’s 2.7 as long as you lucky enough to fit in a very specific set off circumstances such as the farm needs to be owned evenly between spouses for the children to get a million from both. That and once the farm is past on to the children the parents can’t earn any income from the farm nor can they be the main occupiers off the house. Farmers make between .5 and 2 percent off the value of there farm a year the average SME is makes between 5 and 12 percent this is because supermarkets gauge farmers every day they dictate the price that they will pay so people can continue to eat cheap food. So if you don’t want to give farmers IHT tax breaks and subsidies then fine but at least give farmers a fair shake and allow them to make fair profits on their labour and stock and stop supermarket absolutely ripping farmers off.
If you own a business with assets worth £10million & you can’t make a good living from it, sell the business to someone who can & live off the profit you make from the sale. If no one will buy it for £10 million then guess what? It’s not worth £10 million. This isn’t difficult.
The market for land is not determined by real farmers and its business use but by investors buying for tax benefits. In other words the state/politics is setting the price and so it has no comparison with ordinary investments. Your logic would be good in a free(er) market.
@ You mean you wish it was irrelevant. Farmers voting for Brexit simply confirms what the majority know. That farmers want a world that flexes in real time to their ever changing self centred requirements. The real world doesn’t work like that so they’ll just have to suck it up & pay their tax (and sell assets as necessary) like everyone else.
There are several things to unpack here. 1. There are many people vital to society; farmers, police, nurses, firefighters, etc. ALL get paid very little but ONLY farmers pay NO inheritance tax. 2. Everybody paid IHT until 1986, when Lawson gave Farmers exemption (39 year with NO IHT). 3. Now farmers are complaining because they have to pay IHT of 20% (payable over 10 years - so 2% a year) with a threshold of £1m. Meanwhile, everybody else pays 45% over £325,000 payable immediately. How does this look? Well, an average farm in the UK is 250 acres, which in land terms means it is valued about £2.5m + £500k equipment. This would attract an IHT bill of £400k (20% of £2m) or £40k a year over 10 years off a £3m asset! Compare to a middle class person who passes his £1m house onto his son and his £500k pension and savings (these are not extreme values). The IHT bill for the son would be 45% of £1.5m or £675,000. So a non farmer passing on a house and pension worth half that of a working farm, pays double the tax compared to a farmer - using the new regime. Under the old regime the farmer would have paid ZERO tax. Finally, I would remind you that Clarkson (and all of the other 'business' farmers) all bought farms to minimise their IHT bill. They might moan but even today, they will only pay 20% whereas everybody else pays 45%, so a nice 25% saving. The trouble is that here, the likes of Jeremy Clarkson (who admitted in 2021 that he purchased all his land to avoid paying inheritance tax) and other rich land owners and farmers have managed to convince the every farmer that this will affect them. Well it won't and it is about time the rich started paying in to this country to help it.
It feels like the obvious problem here is that we treat farms as personal wealth rather than a business asset, no? We don't charge inheritance tax on a business just because the CEO dies. You could solve this whole mess by creating a new legal category for farms. Perhaps the state becomes an extremely hands-off landlord, allowing the farmers the right to pass on farming rights to their successors but not to sell the land outright, along with the requirement that they prove that the land is being used for agricultural purposes. Farmers get what they want: no punitive taxes over time, and also it's no longer possible for the wealthy to exploit the system as an asset store.
Beckett created thousands of English “farmers” when she changed the production based subsidies to area based in the early 2000. My aunt was one who had 1 acre paddock and claimed the new subsidy and can claim APR on it. Scotland used a historical system which didn’t allow this. Upshot was thousand of new claimants, coupled with a failed IT system, led to massive delays in the rollout. It cost over a billion when you added on the EU fines. 20 years later its had the final kick in the teeth to the farmers, by skewing the statistics so the Treasury can make the wrong assumptions.
The land for farming purposes has very limited value. As you say supply and demand. The new value is in the tax break and the demand that is created. That's why agricultural land has quadruped since the 1990's. Remove the artificially inflated prices by removing the tax break (or at least starting the process ) and land prices will drop. This will solve the farmer's inheritance tax problem because the farmer's estate will be worth far less. Many more will fall outside inheritance.
@@user2172-i8z but now there's a drive to use land for environmental projects plus housing and certainly in my area agricultural land is being bought by people and split up to put horses on. People buying it to avoid iht isn't the only driver of inflated pricing like people seem to claim
If you have 10 million in assets and can only generate at 24k a year income - you're bad at business. Just sell the lot - you can earn more from the interest and never work again. You've already won the game just cash out.
I'm pleased some minority of farmers will pay more tax. Given all the TAX PAYERS money they have handed to them it's about time they paid up in return.
How many years in the last 40 have you enjoyed cheap food as a result of the subsidy the farmers were paid. Until 1996 this was the purpose of them. It has been changing since then. They are moving to be 50% to 100% paid for environmental benefit. Rightly in a lot of circumstances. But this is going to push up your food prices. Not all will receive this going forward. The numbers working in the industry are dramatically decreasing. I think within 10 years there is going to be a massive shortage of farm labour, we as a global population are going to get hungry.
@@downbeat5504 Massive shortfall of labour and subsidies caused by Brexit, which they supported as a majority, yet farmers still parade with Nigel Farage et al. They brought this on themselves.
@@downbeat5504 Nobody wants to get into farming for a number of reasons not least because it is hard work. However many cannot get into it because it is a closed shop because farms are handed down from generation to generation, making it almost Impossible to own your own farm.
Politics caused this, lack of available land. Rental used to be easier. However Labour introduced right to buy in Scotland, but only if landlord wanted to sell. Landlords stopped renting land and farmed in own right or changed to contract farming. Then this IHT is going to do same in England. Price has not kept people out of farming by farmers. It’s investment from those that sell the house in the city, and buy the house and a few acres in the country, development of ag land, renewables, forestry, that drive price.
The value of land has risen significantly faster than general inflation for several decades. It is now totally out of line with the productive value of the businesses that it represents. That is largely because farmland has become a tax shelter for storing wealth by rich people wanting to dodge inheritance tax. This is still a favoured sector compared with other small businesses. Why should this special dispensation be allowed to this sector? While I have sympathy for underpaid farm labour, I don't think farmers'complaints are well directed. They aren't getting a fair price for their product because the supermarkets and corporate food industry are screwing them over - that should be tackled by anti-trust legislation not compensated for by tax breaks!
Am I wrong in thinking that before the UK joined CAP, the government subsidised the consumer but after we joined it was the farmer that was subsidised and we are still lving with that?
Why do farmers earn so little? Surely they need a better deal with the supermarkets and other buyers? This would improve their living and enable them to more easily pay inheritance tax..
Because voters demand cheap food but supermarkets are beholden to their shareholders who demand bigger profits. Farmers being one of the smallest segments of the voting population are thus a convenient and easy target to squeeze.
1 Then how do we fairly tax the extremely wealthy who own such huge areas of our country? 2 Why is land valued so that an asset priced at more than £10 million is generating so little return? The idea that a farmer buying land is at a significant disadvantage because they "don't know the land" like the previous owner is largely spurious. That's why we have agricultural consultants. It would carry more weight as an argument if quite so much agricultural land hadn't been so badly treated over the last 50 years.
Perhaps there would be less anger directed at successive governments if they stopped wasting so much of other peoples money, and ran the country more efficiently.
So when the kulaks have been dispossessed who will the land go to? What is labours relationship with Blackrock? Will our food policy end up costing us as much as our energy policy?
Why can’t we just have an inspector who turns up and judges if land is a working farm? And if so it gets 0% tax? How many farms are there in the UK? Google says 210,000 but this will include pony paddocks etc. The death rate is about 12%, so at most that’s 25,200 farms that are passed on each year. Let’s conservatively assume the farmers are right, and 70% of these farms are at risk of being taxed. That’s 17,640 inspections a year - so you’d need about 100 people to inspect. At 30k a year that’s £3 million a year in salaries to adjudicate the tax - easily pays for itself and provides 100 jobs.
A point of concern is we have an administration that is incapable of carrying out effective due diligence! Time after time we are seeing unintended consequences following policy changes. Maybe they should go back to the colouring books.
It is really disappointing that ordianry farmers are against the inheritance tax. They are fighting the wrong battle. The people who benefit most are those using land as a tax avoidance scheme and this is usually rich oligarchs, corporations and landed estates. These pirchasers of farmland are not real farmers and are pushing the price of farmland up, putting beyond the reach of ordianry folk wanting to enter farming.. We know it is an oligarch thing because, one, there is suddenly a highly publicised demonstration, two , this is a demonstration not condemned by the msm and three,the right wing press are bleating about it from the roof tops. Oh and Marr is a Tory so what is he doing reporting for the New Statesman
My first reaction was to defend the farmers but this issue has opened up a can of worms on the state of our land-use and food production.The problems seem to be that farmers do not make enough money from farming as a business because the land (means of production) is overvalued , prices for produce are too low and subsidies are too low (especially because of Brexit). Clearly we need to address these 3 issues and IHT may be the right way to impact overpriced farmland.
So the argument is that this land wealth isn't real wealth because it can't be used for anything other than farming. But under the current tax-free system, if the kids decide they don't want to be farmers, they can sell the farm and be multimillionaires instead, without paying any tax on the inheritance... So could the answer be that the inheritance tax should become due when and if the farm is sold (or rented out or used for nonfarming purposes)?
The food security argument is interesting but inconsistent with other valuable industries. We sold off our water assets into private hands. Our hospitals (assets) are mostly owned by the state, and the knowledge of medical staff and nurses is just as valuable as farming. Those workers don't have opportunities to increase wealth through asset growth and sell off their share of a hospital. And for the goods produced from the assets, food can be compared to clean water, heating, and their raw materials are on the free market. Energy security, and clean water are just as valuable. A deeper dive and comparison to regulated industries would be really interesting.
Here we are, the real issue is Brexit and the removal of EU subsidies... The government needs to intervene and help farmers but also British produce is being sold far too cheap
Make farmers pay exactly the same tax as everbody else. Why should they be able to pass millions down though future generations tax free when our disabled and pensioners can't even heat their own homes?
The average UK farmer makes £96,100 a year according to the ONS. And they get a free house, at least some free food, and probably a lot of useful tax deductions on things like energy bills. The average farm will be exempt from the tax changes, or could be with a little planning. The IHT proposed will be half the rate mere mortals pay, from a much higher exemption threshold (£3 million), AND they get 10 years to pay the bill, interest free. On 30 October I thought it was a bit harsh. The more I study this, the more convinced I am the changes are reasonable. And I think public opinion is swinging round to the same point of view.
"What farmers pay themselves" shouldn't be glossed over. I grew up in a rural area around farmers, I know accountants and ex-spouses of farmers. They know exactly how some farmers cook their books so that they can report as low a net profit to HMRC as possible. I know accountants who used to get regular requests from farmers for one set of accounts for the tax man, and one set showing a higher earnings figure for the mortgage broker which of course these accountants declined, but I know for sure that there are plenty of accountants that will do it. That's why I take some farmers claims of being on a low wage with a huge pinch of salt.
Did anyone commenting critically actually bother watching the video and then putting their brain in gear? A minority of farmers are rich but most are not and it has always been thus - Nye Bevan said it took the election of a Labour government in 1945 to give the farmers enough money to pay their membership dues to the Tory party.
Love Nye Bevan. Was in Trefil recently, near Tredegar, where his ashes are scattered. He was a real politician. From the people, of the people and for the people.
Why would a farmer with £10M of assets (or even £3M) work for less than minimum wage? They can sell their assets and live far more comfortably on passive investment income.
Why have labour not increased capital gains tax to the same level as income tax?? Why are working people taxed more than those making capital gains on their investments. Investments are generally made by wealthy people (with capital to invest) and this is how they make the gains. This is another poke in the eye for the ordinary working people by a supposedly (but not really) labour government. No wonder their ‘popularity’ has collapsed extremely quickly.
Working people ? Don’t you mean poorer people ? Well poorer people with jobs that pay tax have jobs because someone took a risk and invested to make a return - if the return is reduces you get less jobs and a financial disincentive to sell assets to invest in other ventures to create jobs … like it or not it’s the wealth creation that pays for most of our public services and creates the jobs that create income for others .
If you split the land up because you have to pay inheritance tax, then the farmers have less land to make money on, so their salaries go down even more. So at some point farming becomes unsuitable as a job, and so those people need new jobs and we need to import all our food.
Can you or anyone explain why Labour didn’t see rich people buying land as a loophole: if you’re rich and don’t want your heirs to have to pay their due IHT, buy a farm, and get the tax reliefs farmers were sensibly given when bequeathing their farm to their children. It not only allows rich people to behave selfishly but legally, it has also pushed up the price of farms and created this headache for normal farming families because their estates are more valuable, threfore more likely to be liable for IHT. Labour should simply have closed the loophole, shouldn’t they? Can anyone (any Labour supporters here?) explain why they didn’t make the change to say that to claim this relief, the farmer who has died has to have been farming the farm, not letting it, or having employees manage it, farming it themselves for a qualifying number of years, and that the heir or heirs have to farm it for another qualifying number of years, not let it, or have employees manage it, farm it themselves -- and if they didn't, the tax they were excused would then become due! That would mean accountants would be unlikely to recommend buying farmland to rich but antisocial clients, which would mean prices would return to more sensible levels, and real farmers would probably not pay IHT (unless they were quite wealthy from some other source; running a youtube channel, say). Will Dunn is right to bring up the low prices they get as a source of resentment.
"Standing in the cold is something I do all year round." Exactly! These are tough lot. And they are not gonna give up. The government is messing with the wrong crown this time. It's not "harmless" pensioners who simply don't have their health to go and protest in the cold. These are tough people who are fighting for their existence!
I'm sure there are some farmers earning the minimum wage, I suspect these won't be subjected to > £3m inheritance tax. The majority of farmers in my area drive Bentleys and Aston Martins, so not quite on the minimum wage. Unfortunately tax-free farmland has been hoovered-up by wealthy people to avoid paying inheritance tax, consequently the value of farmland has rocketed in recent years. Removing the tax-free exemption should make that land much more affordable to younger farmers keen to enter the industry. Sadly, that wealth will probably end up in an offshore tax haven instead of the treasury coffers.
Farmland is NOT like a mansion. Farming land is an added value to the UK economy, unlike an elderly aristocrat in a massive mansion. These things are not comparable.
The million pounds is too low a threshold. We all know the boundary will never be moved. It’s not the current generation that is the problem it is the next one in 20 yrs time.
It's set at a million because it's on top of all the allowances already available for IHT. In theory, if the policy results in fewer investors and rich people buy up agricultural land in large quantities specifically to dodgy IHT, there will be more farmland on the market for smaller farmers to buy, and the value of land will reduce. It's possible that the generation of small farmers in 20 years time will have assets worth well under the threshold of IHT allowances, as opposed to only somewhat under as is the case now.
Grateful for Andrew's compassion for the famers. Less so his enthusiasm for Death duties. Especially when they are used to force land sales. Death tax isincentivise entrepreneurs and investors alike and saddle loved ones with a great logistical and legal burden at a time of grieving. There is a reason why Canada, Australia and NZ did away with it.
Watch next: John Prescott "broke through the norms of politics" ruclips.net/video/OQqUBVLv2AE/видео.html
What tax would Blackrock pay if they buy up all the land (or houses)? The company does not die and so will not ‘pass on’ their portfolio. So everything is biased against hard working people.
This is the point. It's why Starmer even tweeted a video praising Blackrock and encouraging them to "invest" in the UK. The whole point is to destroy British farmers and sell the land to Blackrock and international investors.
I was wondering something like that. Family businesses that have been built up over generations could be hit.
There will be capital gains tax on the blackrock shares
The irony of a Blackrock ad popping up half way through this wasn’t lost on me
There is inheritance tax on the blackrock shareholders, at the full 40% without the £1 million relief that farmers get. So the British taxpayer will get a much better deal from Blackrock owning the farm land than from farmers owning it.
It’s almost like Brexit had drastic economic consequences affecting farmers or something
Possibly. But there have been huge protests by farmers all over the European Union in the last couple of years so clearly the problems they face are also faced across the continent, and British farmers are in fact a bit late to the party.
@@patavinity1262 EU farmer protests were connected to EU net zero legislation and Ukraine imports, nothing to do with inheritance.
@@jeza-jezaro My points are that (a) there is a general crisis in farming throughout Europe linked to costs and (b) that this has nothing to do with Brexit. What the particular legislation was that ignited the protests in each given country doesn't matter.
@jeza-jezaro and inheritance tax rules has nothing to do with brexit either. So original comment wrong.
@@patavinity1262ha ha ha that old chestnut eu Farmers were protesting while our farmers were in the EU ! They don’t give a monkeys what leaning their governments are they fight for what they want and got those things for our farmers too ! The difference is our Farmers didn’t protest against their tory Brexit they didn’t protest about their Tory southern hemisphere trade deals and they haven’t protested about supermarkets under the Tories ! As this guy just said fifth generation means they used to pay full inheritance tax and lived through it !
Lots of us are angry about the way that distribution of public finances affects us personally, but the rest of us don't have the entire chaos making right wing press shouting our case
Too true - don't think that the new statesman has been up in arms about the low salaries of carers!!! Don't be brainwashed by this very biased view of our country - this is not an objective company imo
You didn’t listen to the podcast did you?
Spot on!
There is no right wing press in the UK
@@mrg7405😂😂
How much attention does this need? I mean when tax hikes were pushed up over the last 15 years, no one said a peep. Then when the very wealthy tax dodgers are asked to pay Tax through inheritance, the media goes crazy.
Comment of the week that
I think you answered your own question
IHT legalised theft
Because this is a tax which threatens the nation’s food security in the long-term (which is very important, especially in the context of an increasingly fractious world).
Farmers aren't tax dodgers. They're collateral damage.
Farmers need to be getting paid a fairer price for their products as well. The big supermarkets haven’t helped the whole food system is a mess. If they got a better price for their produce then they could afford the tax.
Ekes sick of hearing about the supermarkets etc they have done nothing about it or Brexit or trade deals Why ? Because it was the Tories in charge ! Straight out on the streets as soon as they are asked to pay half wack tax ! The smell of entitlement from them is higher than pig 💩! I wish someone would give my son £3 million for doing nothing ! Why his grandad fought for king and country pre ww2 and was a pow during ww2 his great grandad gave his life in ww1 !
Correct - 5.OFT investigations during my time in the imdustry and no findings because.no.one.would.talk. top.4 supermarkets = 70%.toral food.sales.
Tax expert Richard Murphy makes this point. Also says the tax will lower land values and deter tax dodgers using land as a financial instrument etc.
@@daraorourke5798yes and he is completely wrong! The current price structure will stay the same or get worse. Will Dunn explains between 12:00 and 12:45, I don‘t believe you understood that. The IHT will force parting out of family farms. Even a few hundred would be too many.
Lots of us are underpaid. Economy is a shitshow thanks to 14 years of Tory government
The rest of us are shocked that people with assets over £2,375,000 where paying no tax before. Meanwhile the 46% of farmers who cannot afford farmland, ie tenant farmers are leased with this. It means the billionaire land owners who own much of Britains farmland may not find it quite so lucrative to keep buying it up. As for hobbyist tax avoiders like Clarkson, don’t get me started. I will now wait for some brain washed troll to come back with an insult.
Farming is a very marginal, risky business that requires huge capital. The way this has been implemented has been so indiscriminate and will result in genuine damage to the industry. Large corporations will buy the land forcibly sold to cover this tax.
It would take most people over 100 years to earn that much money. If they sold it for that they could pay themselves £68k for their entire working life. As far as I’m concerned let the farmers pay with the land. If they really want to keep farming it they don’t need to own it.
@@Jay_Johnson do you rent or do you own your house?
@@edwardbernthal160 "do you rent or do you own your house?"
It doesn;t matter. Assuming that he owns his house and it is worth more than £400,000, then his children will have to pay inheritance tax. Why should farmers be any different?
@@tonyb9735 Do you know why I was asking Jay that question? All respect to your answer but it has nothing what so ever to do with the reason behind why I am asking Jay, rent or own.
Actual family farmers use the 7 year rule and pass their land down to the next generation for absolutely no IHT. This is available to absolutely everyone. The people most consumed are the billionaires that have bought up thousands of hectares of farm land, massively inflating the cost of that land, reducing the competitiveness of British farming. Their children have absolutely no interest in becoming a farming. This part was well covered, but no mention of the 7 year rule.
It's laughable that the electoral consequences were bought up. If Labour lost every rural constituency they have their majority would be down to 150 at worst.
What about the 85 year old owner on their last legs that won’t make 7 years?
The best professional succession advice up until the budget was pass on the asset on death. They have no time. It’s a cruel heartless tax. Many of these older people are considering suicide before next April.
@@cornishcoastalfarming2517 Why would any one wait until they are 85 for IHT planning? Why not have passed on to the next generation 10-20 years before? And if they don't want to farm then all we are talking about is a rich land owner.
You just take an insurance policy in case your estate has to pay inheritance tax. Personally I would abolish Inheritance tax paid by estates. Instead beneficiaries should pay income tax on what they receive from an estate at 20% above £10,000.
No pensions. It's the elder.gwneration's income. You make 1% net.margin in that.game.
@andrew wrench, because they had been advised for the last few years this was the best way to pass land on.
‘They’ve been forced to accumulate wealth’. Absolute classic from the New Statesman
“They own £10m in land but only get £24k per year salary” most people get £24k per year with £0 owned in land. The difference is the asset owner CHOOSES to earn £24k, the rest of us are FORCED to work for £24k.
They do not 'choose' to be farmers, that way of life is chosen for them, a bit like being born into a religion, it is what it is.
I think you will find that 'most people' do not earn £24k per year, the average salary in the UK is higher than that, however, the advantage a farmer has, is that their £24k comes with no housing costs, so your point has merit, but not in the way that you framed it.
That said, if someone is on £24k per year, how many hours per week will they work, we know the answer, it's about thirty-five, whilst a farmer is around ninety hours per week.
All of UK Farming Land is owned by 1% of the Population. There are "Farmers" with thousands of acres of property
Citation needed :)
Your wrong. Average farm is more like 200 acres.
@@richadam4010 Nope you're wrong average acres is more than 200.
@@QrowNorait's common knowledge.
Said 1% always rig the game in their favour, however. So they still won't pay.
Multi millionaires are right to be angry over Labour tax changes as it is closing the loopholes they have used for years...
It doesn't close it though. They still get tax free under £1m and 50% relief above. It still represents a great place to invest non- farming wealth to shield it from inheritance tax. All this policy will do is force farmers to sell the thing they need to trade
Total ignoramus
Yes, they're asset rich but cash poor. The poor things have their cash locked-up in offshore tax-free accounts.
Indeed such good arguments to pass on the family farm to the family as a lifetime gift to keep it as a family farm. And not wait until death, but pass it on, even only partially, when the kids themselves start working the family farm. Survive 7 years and nobody needs to pay a penny!
Oh FFS: ‘we need loads of assets and tax loopholes because we can’t make a profit otherwise’
Try that argument in any other sector of the economy. Absolutely pathetic and Andrew Marr should know a lot better.
Oh, and if you don’t want it to be called a Right -wing protest, don’t have Clarkson as your poster boy
Perhaps Marr owns some land
Yawn
People like you destroyed the Left.
oh no, the likes of andrew lloyd webber and jeremy clarkson can't use a loophole to evade taxes anymore 😢
It's not a loop hole.
@@kmrk4055 well then what is it, it's not against any tax laws so what is it ?
@@edwardbernthal160 A loop hole suggests that farmers are benefitting from a tax advantage as an oversight or unintended consequence of tax law. Whereas in reality the rule was specifically designed for farmers with the benefit they are getting the absolute intended consequence, in the same way a pension benefits the owner of the pension, it's designed that way deliberately. If someone contributes to a pension you don't say they're using a tax loop hole to benefit do you? The clue is in the title, it is Agricultural Property Relief. This loop hole horse manure needs to stop.
It is loophole because it was never intended to be used as a tax avoidance strategy by people like them. @@kmrk4055
@@kmrk4055aaa great so non farmers are benefiting from a law that was written for farmers… how is it not a tax evasion/loophole?
Andrew, Farmers as a whole voted for 14 years for the party that kept the tax loophole open that caused their farmland to increase in value.
Even now, they are marching side by side with the wealthy who pushed their land value up.
In no way can you say "This is not their fault".
Also, the hardships they felt over brexit? They voted for that...
This black hole has to be paid by someone, are we going to keep on msking teachers, doctors, nurses and firemen pay?
The tax changes will raise approx. £500m. This is the same amount the British taxpayer sends overseas to foreign farmers. So here's an idea: scrap subsidising foreign farmers entirely and support our own farmers instead!
Unless you were looking over every farmers shoulder when they were in the polling booth putting there x in a box , how could you possibly know? Figures I’ve seen from pollsters shows 58% at most said they voted for Brexit and considering the average age of a farmer is over 60, fits how the nation voted as a whole. If it was possible to put what comes out of your mouth in my muck spreader, I’d have an outstanding crop of cabbages next year.
@@paulrobinson5357 people like to state polls as if they are facts. I assume this is because they truly don't understand what polls are
@@paulrobinson5357 I recall seeing many Ukip posters in the fields up and down the country in 2015/16. Farmers and fishermen fell for Ukip propaganda and voted for Brexit against their own interests.
@@reinholdmueller4882 some obviously did like in all sectors of the voting population in fact I do know of the odd one who said that they did but I have also spoken to many many farmers who said they had voted Remain. I also saw Remain posters in fields. I also know of at least a couple of large farming concerns that put sizeable amounts of money into Remain funding . It’s still one heck of an assumption to say ALL farmers voted Brexit and as a consequence should be punished. Which even as someone who did vote Remain find the thought of ‘being punished’ for doing so abhorrent; after all, we do live in a democracy, don’t we?
I wonder if they’re more annoyed by the 25% VAT on their private school fees or having to finally join the rest of us in paying inheritance tax
25% or 20% VAT?
How many farmers earning £20-30k can afford private school fees?! You’re DELUSIONAL
@@oliverdesvaux On paper they earn 20 to 30k but in reality...
@@oliverdesvaux These farmers are only putting £20-£30k through their books. Get real. If they're prepared to work for less than minimum wage then it is they that are delusional
@ you’re falling for the govt trap. Turning on the common man and woman who are your neighbours and you have the most in common with, instead of focusing on the fact the royals pay no inheritance tax and the civil servants still get their gold plated pension and benefits like the mp’s….
Oh my what did farmers do before 1984 when they had to pay 40% IHT?
They had better returns for a start. The relief was given as farms were falling at an increasing rate, as food prices were forced down.
@@gavinwilln7571 You mean by "returns" that we were in the Eu before BREXIT?!?!?!
@@mustrumridcully3853 No. You can't have Brexit before you join. It was the EEC at that point, the political crap was not part of it at this time.
We paid higher food prices.
@@mustrumridcully3853 No.
No they don't! Treasury figures are correct. Farmers are being taken for a ride by wealthy non-farm owners trying to avoid inheritance taxes. LABOUR SHOULD STAND FIRM, 20% tax is too generous
Sorry that is not correct, the Treasury figures are utter rubbish and they are city dwellers who have no grasp of financial realities. This is policy by people who have never run a business let alone a farm and just look at numbers on a spreadsheet, detached from the reality of what those numbers mean in real life. If you want cheap food to internationally high standards, support farmers. If you shopped in say the US you would have considerably lower food standards and your food on average would cost you 50% more. If this policy goes through you will destroy family farms in this country and we will all be worse off.
They are incorrect. It was onlyAPR figures and did not include BPR.
Imagine still believing the Treasury in 2024.
This institution has destroyed us over decades.
Mate I don’t think you’ve thought this through… we’re taking about taxing the critical infrastructure that maintains the country’s food security. The ‘wealth’ of farmers is tied up in assets that serve the common good of the British people and if we make it economically non viable to invest in these assets then how will we ensure the longevity of our food security? You’re inadvertently fighting in black rock and Monsanto’s corner… this 20% tax will be a one off payment - as farmers are forced to sell land to pay it, private equity will snap it up and forever remove it from private ownership and IT will never be paid on it again.
If you are asset rich - you are still rich. Restrict any relief only to passing it on to working farmers in the same family. On sale - you pay the tax - like everyone else.
on sale you already pay tax like anybody else
Urbanites ruining the country again…
No, it isn't about 'no one wants to pay for any of it', it was just explained to you - this is a fiscal policy that will hit the wrong people, and risks having all kinds of knock on negative effects for a group of people already under a huge amount of strain. Not to mention, said people's labour and output is incredibly important for the country's well being and economic health as a whole.
Rachel Reeves has got it all wrong. She should listen to this podcast. However, government antipathy by all British parties against farmers (as well as the idiocy of DEFRA) has been clear to me since the early 1990s. I used to teach at the oldest agricultural college in the world (Cirencester) but in 1994 I saw the writing on the wall and moved to the other side of the Irish Sea. I have never regretted the change, though Ireland has been following the UK's lead for some time now. However, I am grateful for 30 years in a better environment for farmers.
This was a very intelligent and nuanced conversation. Interestingly, the comment section is full of people who are really struggling with any level of detail, up to and including ‘serves them right for voting Brexit.’
£24,000 a year is that all found ! So food energy vehicle ( £100,000 Range Rover ?) fuel ? Clothing ? Footwear ? Rent free ? Maintenance on the property free ? Council tax ? I assume that £24,000 is trouser money ? Glad you changed from farmers to Land owners ! We have 20 Dukes who own 1 million acres between them ! I assume they don’t live in a 2 up 2 down terraced ! I would love someone to give my son 1,000 acres and a house for nothing ! Just well done your grandad was a pow in ww2 forced Labour down a mine served before ww2 all round the empire ! He didn’t come home to even a house ! The smell of entitlement is stronger than pig 💩
You assume a lot.
We hear that the French tax man can tell the difference between farmers and escape to the country folk.
any tax man can do this if they want to ............
@georgedoorley5628 yeah, exactly
Could the Treasury make a rule that IHT would only be payable if the farm was sold to a third party outside direct descendents / immediate family members or for reasons other than a continuation of existing business i.e. working farm land. This would also capture the super wealthy and their descendants when they try to realise their asset. The IHT standard rate of 40% should apply to everyone and every business equally.
Nope, this is precisely how the landed gentry have avoided IHT for centuries by offshoring their land in shell companies based in tax havens.
No, they will continue land banking till a Tory government brings back the tax loophole
to be honest, if these are farmers that are making food for the uk, they should not be taxed at all.
The question was 'why the discrepancy between government and the NFU regarding the number of farms affected' and what was the answer? Mr Dunn launched into a long-winded explanation of what the new rules are but did not answer the question asked so, what is the answer?
You cannot have a serious discussion about the state of UK government finances until you at least admit that Brexit didn't work out as planned.
Well said Andrew and Will. I'm from a farming background. It's so good that someone from your spectrum of the politicle divide gets it. So very well argued and understood. Thank you both.
Agricultural land with a five bed detached house whose equivalent would cost you over 25 years £2 million in mortgage repayments. So that makes your £24,000 income more palatable.
As this tax break is less than 40 years old. How were farms taxed at death if the farmer prior to that?
Is there any evidence that family farms are better than farms owned by limited companies?
I remember when the farmers said that banning fox hunting would result in every horse being shot and Foxhounds dying out. That never happened. So will farming stop, will families not be able to pass on their farms to the next generation? I doubt it.
your confusing landed gentry estates with the fox hunting ban. most farmers that grow or produce food have no horses. Farming Explained on RUclips goes into detail about that and many more topics related to farming.
@@alastairatcheson1407 And alot of land barons do not farm food produce instead using it as a vehicle to avoid their tax obligations. Selectiveness 101
Unfortunately this sounds like a comment of a misinformed urbanite. Look at America as a model. Corporate farming dominates, production higher and more efficient. Animal welfare lower, environmental impact higher, food quality lower. The other thing to consider, if corporate farms become the standard here, that would become a very powerful lobbying group prioritising wealth over things like welfare, quality and the environment. Try and have nuance to your argument. Conflating fox hunting with farming is a null point.
@@blazzz13 then why not go after the land barons rather than the farmers?
No wonder the industry is falling apart. It's insanity. I feel for those hardworking farmers
Nice to see a balanced and INFORMED discussion about the new tax from non-farmers. Andrew makes a great point about the importance of farms passing down each generation. The knowledge and technical understanding we build from an early age is invaluable when taking on the business. Most livestock farmers begin there apprenticeships in animal husbandry from about the age of 5! Its one of the fundamental reasons we have some the highest welfare and sustainability standards in the world. One thing I would add is that farming isn't just hard work, its hard technically as well, its constantly evolving and you are always learning and having to adapt. As my dad always says, there is no blueprint for farming. It seems many people still have a very romanticised and simplistic view of the agricultural industry which leads to a lack of empathy.
Can I suggest that government has a more intelligent and discerning approach to this tax. We need to tax wealthy people buying up farmland to avoid inheritance tax - that’s obvious. It is this that has inflated agricultural land prices and dragged more farmers into this new tax trap. I think people understand the position of real working farmers who work extremely hard for relatively small incomes (when you consider the hours worked required by farming). We need the real working farmers in our community in the same way we need many other aspects of working society. We don’t need huge tracts of land owned by wealthy people to avoid taxation and which is not used effectively. Another pressing problem is the food processing industry - which itself owns the biggest and most intensively run farms, and turns our ultra processed foods at the end of the production process.
Anyway - should not inheritance tax be levied at the point of asset disposal? Until the asset is cashed in - there is no actual financial gain.
Rich people from cities are buying in the country and gentrifying the place, pricing farmers out. Just like Air BnB in Cornwall. Prices have gone nuts. Local people forced out. Wake up!
The only way for farmers to compensate for losing 20% of their farms every generation is to increase their prices to the public. The only way to guarantee that this can happen is to halt the free market in food and insist that the UK supermarkets must buy UK food stocks before importing.
When you say deep anger, there just isn’t. You report it like this, and make it sound massive… it’s shallow anger, from a small number of very very wealthy people.
"it’s shallow anger, from a small number of very very wealthy people." You obviously didn't listen to the podcast which confirmed that most farmers are cash poor but asset rich and also the fact that agricultural land is not actually the same as owning a large mansion with a pony paddock. But hey, enjoy your ideologically induced ignorance whilst congratulating yourself on how virtuous you are.
People like you destroyed the Left.
You didn't notice the mass demonstration in London earlier this week then?
@@Schiltron I listened to something about people cash poor and asset rich, not cash poor and asset poor. If you own you land and hour outright and owe nothing and your income is low, it’s likely not low in relation to everyone else, because it’s all expendable money.
@@Schiltron it’s not ideological ignorance just because you disagree with it. It’s an economic opinion on what I view as sensible and fundamentally necessary economic police desire to change outlooks and attitudes on what we should protect, who has to pay money, and where money should go. It’s an opinion formed reading economics, learning about history, keeping up to date with movements in the world, picturing where we are heading with wealthy accumulation, and then influenced by the fact I went to a privet school, with hordes of farmers/farmers sons, several of whom are now protesting a modest tax rise on the wealth, while I know exactly what they have and own and the lives they live. It’s come from being from London, seeing the reality of the majority of peoples lives and comparing it to those farmers, who are happy to protest now when measures are introduced to stop wealth entrenchment, but who wouldn’t complain about or protest about Brexit, something far more damaging to their take home each year, and to the very institution of British farming. Excuse me if I don’t care much that my friends in-laws for example, who live in something between an actual castle and a country mansion, are now going to have to pay half the normal rate of inheritance tax on everything they own over the value of some £3 million.
Andrew marr CANT NOT STOP WORD VOMITING FAR RIGHT WITH ANY SORT OF LABOUR CRITICISM
Why should farmers alone be exempt from inheritance tax? That exemption meant that buying farms became a loophole for very wealthy people to avoid paying inheritance tax. The problem, as it always seems to be, is that the very wealthy people don't want to pay a socially responsible share of tax.
Labour are trying to balance the books, so if farmers are unhappy that they are being punished by having to pay more tax, can they suggest who should pay more to achieve or, indeed, share the government's aim!
They are right to be angry. Fair enough. Let them be.
Wow the people in the comments really didn’t listen to what Andrew Marr was saying…Farmers are not your normal wealthy people. They are literally providing food for the nation (for a measely sum) so maybe we should do what we can to…I don’t know…keep food in our supermarkets…?
I am sorry but I can’t feel sorry for farmers who are sitting on £3m or more of assets pretending they have a difficult life.
There is a complete difference between the asset and the amount a farm earns.
Many work 90-100 hour weeks in all weathers to produce the food you eat.
The equivalent income is less tha minimum wage. If you want I can arrange a job for you on a farm for a year, and you can tell me what you think after that.
Why does it matter how much their assets are worth if they’re never intending to sell them and those assets are income producing and are necessary for them to make a living? It’s not like they’re sat on £3m of gold bullion
@@downbeat5504 All you're saying is that their business isn't viable. If it's not viable then SELL your asset and move on to something profitable. "Asset rich, cash poor" isn't a real thing, all it means is "I don't want to liquidate my assets to pay the same tax as everyone else". Well boohoo.
@@downbeat5504. 100 hours a week in all weathers…..every week of the year !!! Name them.
@@bena7519 Because it's essentially a tax avoidance scheme for the wealthy. That's why. If they want to avoid the tax pass on the estate to children with enough time like ANY OTHER FAMILY BUSINESS.
I had a friend at uni who was a farmers daughter. She constantly protested these same things about being wealthy but low income. Yet somehow the family owned a second home, she regularly made luxury purchases (a new kayak being the most memorable), then wouldn't chip in for shared meals because she claimed she couldn't afford it as a 'low income' farmer. Ever since then I've found it very hard not to be sceptical of any similar claims.
Farmers need to be paid better. The supermarkets have them at gunpoint. Even the manufacturers of equipment can be bad. If farming actually made money then inheritance wouldn't be a problem. Apart from morrisons they are all making record profits.
Cost of greed.
1 million if you're a single parent/farmer. 3 million if a couple.
Yet there are many Tennant farmers that would love their own farm but the land is owned by generational land owners.
This all comes back to greedy corporations
Farmers want to be part of world free trade. They voted Tory and Brexit to get it.
If small farms are uneconomic then they are eaten up by, usually bigger, more efficient ones. This has been going on since the Agricultural Revolution, so around 275 years.
Globalisation also has a lot to do with it, and this is related to the decline of British manufacturing. If cheaper goods can be accessed from other countries produced by workers who are paid less, then they will tend to dominate the market.
@@patavinity1262I'm a manufacturing engineer in aviation. Every company I've worked for wants the planning (instructions) to a point where they can grab anyone off the street to build or assemble that part. They do not want to pay for skilled people, they don't want to pay for me! Capitalism is out of control.
The billionaire owners/shareholders largely don't care. I've sat in meetings with ceo's referring complex and life critical aircraft parts as sausages. They don't care about your safety, they care about money.
What worries me with this move is more corporations owning the country, this time the land.
Also UK companies are awful. 0 interest in investing in developing apprentices, people or their own products. Hense British Leyland etc. Accountants shouldn't run manufacturing firms.
@@BoyeeSmudger I agree and sympathise.
not one million if you a single parent. you still get the reliefs attached to the farmhouse. 1.5 million tax free. Also if you are a seperated couple who both owned shares in the business the 3 million would still be the correct figure.
Like any new government with new policies being enacted and require a deal of fine tuning yes farmers are used to having a tax free way of passing on wealth and often farmers will utilise capital to buy land wether intending to farm it or rent or set aside with the over and above their normal farm size to take advantage of the relief.
There are of course wealthy individuals who aren't really farmers utilising this relief to pass on generational wealth just like they were using pensions in this way.
I think a good deal of fine tuning is required as what size of farm is actually fully viable and profitable? And what is it worth as a whole entity animals houses machinery etc I suspect its a fair bit more than £3M however farmers can still gift assets as long as they survive for 7 or more years so perhaps some HMRC working with the farming community could come up with improved proposals that family generational owned farms can utilise.
Giving it seven years before applying would help. At least on something with a higher threshold.
Not impressed by the double cab pickup tax hikes and BPR rules either. The IHT DC pension changes probably not affecting them much at least.
Generations of non tax payers land owners who receive lots of relief, complaining about paying their share (less than their share in reality), and it’s not about tenant farmers.
Thank you as ever for a great discussion! I’m puzzled at what happened before Thatcher brought in this avoidance of inheritance tax in 1984. Life presumably carried on. What seems to have happened since is that a valuable allowance for genuine farming families has been high jacked by city slickers for simple tax avoidance purposes.
I think Will made the crucial comment that “HMRC ought to be able to flush out these people”. It may well be true that Starmer/Reeves have their eyes on 500 tax avoiders but unwittingly they have ensnared a huge number of genuine farming families. This tax does seem like the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut. Why, oh why, are Starmer/Reeves so stupid in their tax choices? Can’t someone please take them aside and teach them some common sense.
I very much doubt Reeves had this measure in mind when Labour got voted in, she's not that bright. This has the stamp of someone in the Treasury with a bee in their bonnet, and Reeves has fallen in the hole they dug for her. Another ill thought through measure. They're very good at that
Andrew Webb the stench of entitlement is overwhelming! It’s higher than pig 💩why do they think themselves better than any other tax payer ! My father served before and during ww2 he was a pow then sent forced Labour down a coal mine ! He couldn’t didn’t get a council house until 1969 ! He lost his father in ww1 ! What the feck do farmers think they have the god given right to avoid tax that everyone else pays ! If they can’t get bye on supermarket deals then get out and do something about it! Ahhhh it’s no longer a Tory government
It's not a "messaging" problem, it's a stupid thoughtless decision problem with no consideration of collateral damage.
I'm literally wondering how many elderly farmers will commit suicide before the cut off date to leave their farms to their families.
Took me literally seconds to consider that. It's like they've never met or actually talked to farmers. Their whole life is about passing on the business, that they often inherited themselves.
food cost a hell of a lot more of our earnings than it does now. That's what we did before the tax breaks to farmers we paid high prices
@@hexrag5901 So much else has changed since then, not least CAP subsidies! On what basis can you attribute cheaper food to a tax break to farmers, please?
Andrew Marr is absolutely right. Farm land value is different....In fact whilst it is being farmed it's value (return on investment) is just about ZERO. Its value is pushed up by wealthy who are not really farmers.
Farmers can be angry, but who isn't when they're asked to pay up the share fair of taxes, but the British Public supports this TAX and this is evident as Labour's support has increased since they announced it and the protests.
He lays out an obvious specific argument about farmers, then she says "isn't this the standard argent we hear about injeritance tax?"
At last a balanced, fair report by Marr and the New Statesman. The majority of farmers are not cash rich. There is an ignorant, classist view that if you have a large house and acres of agricultural land, you are deemed to be wealthy. If the government want to get a grip on tax avoidance, why not ring fence and identify those who bought land for tax avoidance, rather than paint all farmers with the same brush and tax the vulnerable. This is another real issue caused by a budget with no proper planning or thought. Will Labour show some guts and reverse these spiteful decisions, especially in view of the relatively petty amounts drawn for the exchequer.
If you own 'A large house and acres of agricultural land' then by definition you ARE well off. You are literally sitting on and living in an asset you CAN draw money on! No-one in today's Britain that has those things is in any way financially at least, vulnerable.
A majority of farmers are not cash rich I agree, that's why the threshold has been set so that a majority of farmers will not pay the tax at all.
@@andrewrose7800 Sell up. Invest the money and live well and be happy. Someone else can have the worry.
@@zxbzxbzxb1you clearly have no clue how much tractors (and all the attachments) cost these days. It's quite easy for a family farm with land, buildings, and machinery to be over their threshold. It's exactly as unfair as charging IHT on someone in London inheriting a small terraced house because the price of their family home has gone silly because of property speculators and double taxation on their parents pension savings (IHT + Income tax).
It's why corporations grow massive and family businesses go bust. Corporations don't die so don't pay inheritance tax.
But for many it's their life, and has been for many generations before. This is what the government fails to want to understand.
Labour's policy is not tackling the non- farmers. They still get 50% relief
So farmers don’t have wealth because off the tax breaks they have wealth because off the land value on the farm and the value off the machinery that is needed to work the land most off which is debt as it’s financed by loans. Also the caveats for the IHT for agriculture is not 3 million it’s 2.7 as long as you lucky enough to fit in a very specific set off circumstances such as the farm needs to be owned evenly between spouses for the children to get a million from both. That and once the farm is past on to the children the parents can’t earn any income from the farm nor can they be the main occupiers off the house. Farmers make between .5 and 2 percent off the value of there farm a year the average SME is makes between 5 and 12 percent this is because supermarkets gauge farmers every day they dictate the price that they will pay so people can continue to eat cheap food. So if you don’t want to give farmers IHT tax breaks and subsidies then fine but at least give farmers a fair shake and allow them to make fair profits on their labour and stock and stop supermarket absolutely ripping farmers off.
If you own a business with assets worth £10million & you can’t make a good living from it, sell the business to someone who can & live off the profit you make from the sale.
If no one will buy it for £10 million then guess what? It’s not worth £10 million.
This isn’t difficult.
The market for land is not determined by real farmers and its business use but by investors buying for tax benefits. In other words the state/politics is setting the price and so it has no comparison with ordinary investments. Your logic would be good in a free(er) market.
@ Farmers voted to leave the EU for a freer market. How did that go?
@@lordelpus2297 - entirely irrelevent to the subject in hand.
@ You mean you wish it was irrelevant.
Farmers voting for Brexit simply confirms what the majority know. That farmers want a world that flexes in real time to their ever changing self centred requirements. The real world doesn’t work like that so they’ll just have to suck it up & pay their tax (and sell assets as necessary) like everyone else.
There are several things to unpack here.
1. There are many people vital to society; farmers, police, nurses, firefighters, etc. ALL get paid very little but ONLY farmers pay NO inheritance tax.
2. Everybody paid IHT until 1986, when Lawson gave Farmers exemption (39 year with NO IHT).
3. Now farmers are complaining because they have to pay IHT of 20% (payable over 10 years - so 2% a year) with a threshold of £1m. Meanwhile, everybody else pays 45% over £325,000 payable immediately. How does this look?
Well, an average farm in the UK is 250 acres, which in land terms means it is valued about £2.5m + £500k equipment. This would attract an IHT bill of £400k (20% of £2m) or £40k a year over 10 years off a £3m asset!
Compare to a middle class person who passes his £1m house onto his son and his £500k pension and savings (these are not extreme values). The IHT bill for the son would be 45% of £1.5m or £675,000.
So a non farmer passing on a house and pension worth half that of a working farm, pays double the tax compared to a farmer - using the new regime. Under the old regime the farmer would have paid ZERO tax.
Finally, I would remind you that Clarkson (and all of the other 'business' farmers) all bought farms to minimise their IHT bill. They might moan but even today, they will only pay 20% whereas everybody else pays 45%, so a nice 25% saving. The trouble is that here, the likes of Jeremy Clarkson (who admitted in 2021 that he purchased all his land to avoid paying inheritance tax) and other rich land owners and farmers have managed to convince the every farmer that this will affect them. Well it won't and it is about time the rich started paying in to this country to help it.
Andrew marr is the best non farmer that understands that its the farm family that understand their own land best
It feels like the obvious problem here is that we treat farms as personal wealth rather than a business asset, no? We don't charge inheritance tax on a business just because the CEO dies. You could solve this whole mess by creating a new legal category for farms. Perhaps the state becomes an extremely hands-off landlord, allowing the farmers the right to pass on farming rights to their successors but not to sell the land outright, along with the requirement that they prove that the land is being used for agricultural purposes. Farmers get what they want: no punitive taxes over time, and also it's no longer possible for the wealthy to exploit the system as an asset store.
Beckett created thousands of English “farmers” when she changed the production based subsidies to area based in the early 2000. My aunt was one who had 1 acre paddock and claimed the new subsidy and can claim APR on it. Scotland used a historical system which didn’t allow this. Upshot was thousand of new claimants, coupled with a failed IT system, led to massive delays in the rollout. It cost over a billion when you added on the EU fines. 20 years later its had the final kick in the teeth to the farmers, by skewing the statistics so the Treasury can make the wrong assumptions.
If farming is so unprofitable why is land so expensive? Supply and demand methinks at about £10 ,000 per acre!
The land for farming purposes has very limited value. As you say supply and demand. The new value is in the tax break and the demand that is created. That's why agricultural land has quadruped since the 1990's. Remove the artificially inflated prices by removing the tax break (or at least starting the process ) and land prices will drop. This will solve the farmer's inheritance tax problem because the farmer's estate will be worth far less. Many more will fall outside inheritance.
@@user2172-i8z but now there's a drive to use land for environmental projects plus housing and certainly in my area agricultural land is being bought by people and split up to put horses on. People buying it to avoid iht isn't the only driver of inflated pricing like people seem to claim
@@user2172-i8zthat’s a nice fantasy, except the vast majority of land value is in its development potential…
If you have 10 million in assets and can only generate at 24k a year income - you're bad at business.
Just sell the lot - you can earn more from the interest and never work again. You've already won the game just cash out.
I'm pleased some minority of farmers will pay more tax. Given all the TAX PAYERS money they have handed to them it's about time they paid up in return.
How many years in the last 40 have you enjoyed cheap food as a result of the subsidy the farmers were paid. Until 1996 this was the purpose of them. It has been changing since then. They are moving to be 50% to 100% paid for environmental benefit. Rightly in a lot of circumstances. But this is going to push up your food prices.
Not all will receive this going forward.
The numbers working in the industry are dramatically decreasing. I think within 10 years there is going to be a massive shortage of farm labour, we as a global population are going to get hungry.
@@downbeat5504 Massive shortfall of labour and subsidies caused by Brexit, which they supported as a majority, yet farmers still parade with Nigel Farage et al. They brought this on themselves.
@@downbeat5504 Nobody wants to get into farming for a number of reasons not least because it is hard work. However many cannot get into it because it is a closed shop because farms are handed down from generation to generation, making it almost Impossible to own your own farm.
Politics caused this, lack of available land. Rental used to be easier. However Labour introduced right to buy in Scotland, but only if landlord wanted to sell. Landlords stopped renting land and farmed in own right or changed to contract farming. Then this IHT is going to do same in England.
Price has not kept people out of farming by farmers.
It’s investment from those that sell the house in the city, and buy the house and a few acres in the country, development of ag land, renewables, forestry, that drive price.
@@JAYFD2929 go to France .......... land is reasonable in price there as the government stops non farmers from buying land
The value of land has risen significantly faster than general inflation for several decades. It is now totally out of line with the productive value of the businesses that it represents. That is largely because farmland has become a tax shelter for storing wealth by rich people wanting to dodge inheritance tax. This is still a favoured sector compared with other small businesses. Why should this special dispensation be allowed to this sector? While I have sympathy for underpaid farm labour, I don't think farmers'complaints are well directed. They aren't getting a fair price for their product because the supermarkets and corporate food industry are screwing them over - that should be tackled by anti-trust legislation not compensated for by tax breaks!
Am I wrong in thinking that before the UK joined CAP, the government subsidised the consumer but after we joined it was the farmer that was subsidised and we are still lving with that?
Why do farmers earn so little? Surely they need a better deal with the supermarkets and other buyers? This would improve their living and enable them to more easily pay inheritance tax..
Because voters demand cheap food but supermarkets are beholden to their shareholders who demand bigger profits. Farmers being one of the smallest segments of the voting population are thus a convenient and easy target to squeeze.
1 Then how do we fairly tax the extremely wealthy who own such huge areas of our country?
2 Why is land valued so that an asset priced at more than £10 million is generating so little return?
The idea that a farmer buying land is at a significant disadvantage because they "don't know the land" like the previous owner is largely spurious. That's why we have agricultural consultants. It would carry more weight as an argument if quite so much agricultural land hadn't been so badly treated over the last 50 years.
Perhaps there would be less anger directed at successive governments if they stopped wasting so much of other peoples money, and ran the country more efficiently.
So when the kulaks have been dispossessed who will the land go to? What is labours relationship with Blackrock? Will our food policy end up costing us as much as our energy policy?
Farmers are a business or they aren’t. Take the 10million and earn 5% and leave working for a living to the rest of us who aren’t rich.
Farmers don't work for a living 😂😂😂
Why can’t we just have an inspector who turns up and judges if land is a working farm? And if so it gets 0% tax?
How many farms are there in the UK? Google says 210,000 but this will include pony paddocks etc.
The death rate is about 12%, so at most that’s 25,200 farms that are passed on each year. Let’s conservatively assume the farmers are right, and 70% of these farms are at risk of being taxed. That’s 17,640 inspections a year - so you’d need about 100 people to inspect.
At 30k a year that’s £3 million a year in salaries to adjudicate the tax - easily pays for itself and provides 100 jobs.
Tories slammed Labour for joining picket lines, such hypocritical behaviour
Farmers protesting about issues directly affecting them is something new in political activism
The language is always interesting. Rich=tax relief Poor=benefits
A point of concern is we have an administration that is incapable of carrying out effective due diligence! Time after time we are seeing unintended consequences following policy changes.
Maybe they should go back to the colouring books.
Yes, “farmers” using land to avoid tax will lose out
It is really disappointing that ordianry farmers are against the inheritance tax. They are fighting the wrong battle. The people who benefit most are those using land as a tax avoidance scheme and this is usually rich oligarchs, corporations and landed estates. These pirchasers of farmland are not real farmers and are pushing the price of farmland up, putting beyond the reach of ordianry folk wanting to enter farming.. We know it is an oligarch thing because, one, there is suddenly a highly publicised demonstration, two , this is a demonstration not condemned by the msm and three,the right wing press are bleating about it from the roof tops. Oh and Marr is a Tory so what is he doing reporting for the New Statesman
My first reaction was to defend the farmers but this issue has opened up a can of worms on the state of our land-use and food production.The problems seem to be that farmers do not make enough money from farming as a business because the land (means of production) is overvalued , prices for produce are too low and subsidies are too low (especially because of Brexit). Clearly we need to address these 3 issues and IHT may be the right way to impact overpriced farmland.
So the argument is that this land wealth isn't real wealth because it can't be used for anything other than farming. But under the current tax-free system, if the kids decide they don't want to be farmers, they can sell the farm and be multimillionaires instead, without paying any tax on the inheritance... So could the answer be that the inheritance tax should become due when and if the farm is sold (or rented out or used for nonfarming purposes)?
This is the most sensible take I’ve seen on this subject so far
The food security argument is interesting but inconsistent with other valuable industries. We sold off our water assets into private hands. Our hospitals (assets) are mostly owned by the state, and the knowledge of medical staff and nurses is just as valuable as farming. Those workers don't have opportunities to increase wealth through asset growth and sell off their share of a hospital. And for the goods produced from the assets, food can be compared to clean water, heating, and their raw materials are on the free market. Energy security, and clean water are just as valuable. A deeper dive and comparison to regulated industries would be really interesting.
And now we have the chance to NOT repeat the mistake we made with other vital national assets.
"Never seen a farmer on a bike..."
Here we are, the real issue is Brexit and the removal of EU subsidies... The government needs to intervene and help farmers but also British produce is being sold far too cheap
Make farmers pay exactly the same tax as everbody else. Why should they be able to pass millions down though future generations tax free when our disabled and pensioners can't even heat their own homes?
The average UK farmer makes £96,100 a year according to the ONS. And they get a free house, at least some free food, and probably a lot of useful tax deductions on things like energy bills. The average farm will be exempt from the tax changes, or could be with a little planning. The IHT proposed will be half the rate mere mortals pay, from a much higher exemption threshold (£3 million), AND they get 10 years to pay the bill, interest free.
On 30 October I thought it was a bit harsh. The more I study this, the more convinced I am the changes are reasonable. And I think public opinion is swinging round to the same point of view.
"What farmers pay themselves" shouldn't be glossed over. I grew up in a rural area around farmers, I know accountants and ex-spouses of farmers. They know exactly how some farmers cook their books so that they can report as low a net profit to HMRC as possible. I know accountants who used to get regular requests from farmers for one set of accounts for the tax man, and one set showing a higher earnings figure for the mortgage broker which of course these accountants declined, but I know for sure that there are plenty of accountants that will do it. That's why I take some farmers claims of being on a low wage with a huge pinch of salt.
Did anyone commenting critically actually bother watching the video and then putting their brain in gear? A minority of farmers are rich but most are not and it has always been thus - Nye Bevan said it took the election of a Labour government in 1945 to give the farmers enough money to pay their membership dues to the Tory party.
Love Nye Bevan. Was in Trefil recently, near Tredegar, where his ashes are scattered. He was a real politician. From the people, of the people and for the people.
Why would a farmer with £10M of assets (or even £3M) work for less than minimum wage? They can sell their assets and live far more comfortably on passive investment income.
Really good podcast guys, well done. Nice to see it from a different perspective. A Dairy Farmer
Why have labour not increased capital gains tax to the same level as income tax?? Why are working people taxed more than those making capital gains on their investments. Investments are generally made by wealthy people (with capital to invest) and this is how they make the gains. This is another poke in the eye for the ordinary working people by a supposedly (but not really) labour government. No wonder their ‘popularity’ has collapsed extremely quickly.
Working people ? Don’t you mean poorer people ? Well poorer people with jobs that pay tax have jobs because someone took a risk and invested to make a return - if the return is reduces you get less jobs and a financial disincentive to sell assets to invest in other ventures to create jobs … like it or not it’s the wealth creation that pays for most of our public services and creates the jobs that create income for others .
No Sympathy for Tax avoidance .
If you split the land up because you have to pay inheritance tax, then the farmers have less land to make money on, so their salaries go down even more. So at some point farming becomes unsuitable as a job, and so those people need new jobs and we need to import all our food.
Rachel Reeves needs to get out and about a bit more... 😮
Many of these wealthy landowners do not farm the land themselves, so much of the knowledge will continue under the tenant farmers
Its going to a whole lot worse when pensioners fall into the tax bracket, thus making them 20% worse off financially
Can you or anyone explain why Labour didn’t see rich people buying land as a loophole: if you’re rich and don’t want your heirs to have to pay their due IHT, buy a farm, and get the tax reliefs farmers were sensibly given when bequeathing their farm to their children. It not only allows rich people to behave selfishly but legally, it has also pushed up the price of farms and created this headache for normal farming families because their estates are more valuable, threfore more likely to be liable for IHT. Labour should simply have closed the loophole, shouldn’t they? Can anyone (any Labour supporters here?) explain why they didn’t make the change to say that to claim this relief, the farmer who has died has to have been farming the farm, not letting it, or having employees manage it, farming it themselves for a qualifying number of years, and that the heir or heirs have to farm it for another qualifying number of years, not let it, or have employees manage it, farm it themselves -- and if they didn't, the tax they were excused would then become due! That would mean accountants would be unlikely to recommend buying farmland to rich but antisocial clients, which would mean prices would return to more sensible levels, and real farmers would probably not pay IHT (unless they were quite wealthy from some other source; running a youtube channel, say).
Will Dunn is right to bring up the low prices they get as a source of resentment.
"Standing in the cold is something I do all year round." Exactly! These are tough lot. And they are not gonna give up. The government is messing with the wrong crown this time. It's not "harmless" pensioners who simply don't have their health to go and protest in the cold. These are tough people who are fighting for their existence!
I'm sure there are some farmers earning the minimum wage, I suspect these won't be subjected to > £3m inheritance tax. The majority of farmers in my area drive Bentleys and Aston Martins, so not quite on the minimum wage. Unfortunately tax-free farmland has been hoovered-up by wealthy people to avoid paying inheritance tax, consequently the value of farmland has rocketed in recent years. Removing the tax-free exemption should make that land much more affordable to younger farmers keen to enter the industry. Sadly, that wealth will probably end up in an offshore tax haven instead of the treasury coffers.
Farmland is NOT like a mansion. Farming land is an added value to the UK economy, unlike an elderly aristocrat in a massive mansion. These things are not comparable.
The million pounds is too low a threshold. We all know the boundary will never be moved. It’s not the current generation that is the problem it is the next one in 20 yrs time.
It's set at a million because it's on top of all the allowances already available for IHT. In theory, if the policy results in fewer investors and rich people buy up agricultural land in large quantities specifically to dodgy IHT, there will be more farmland on the market for smaller farmers to buy, and the value of land will reduce. It's possible that the generation of small farmers in 20 years time will have assets worth well under the threshold of IHT allowances, as opposed to only somewhat under as is the case now.
Grateful for Andrew's compassion for the famers. Less so his enthusiasm for Death duties. Especially when they are used to force land sales. Death tax isincentivise entrepreneurs and investors alike and saddle loved ones with a great logistical and legal burden at a time of grieving. There is a reason why Canada, Australia and NZ did away with it.