Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
The proponents of the changes advocate that farmers should use all the elaborate mechanisms to avoid the IHT - gifts, trusts and companies.
Setting up and maintaining such structures is not free. In addition, the normal operating purchases and sales of food, materials and equipment by/from the farms will be complicated. Complicated usually equals cost.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
It destroys the value of their investments as well as losing much of the family farm on the farmers death
2 million pounds becomes 1.8 million pounds . My heart bleeds.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
It destroys the value of their investments as well as losing much of the family farm on the farmers death
2 million pounds becomes 1.8 million pounds . My heart bleeds.
Losing 10% of the potential income base, why would anyone bother doing it?
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
Depite it all, I bet you'd still attend Clarksons summer soiree with all the rich folks of Chipping Norton if you got an invite! 😂
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
It destroys the value of their investments as well as losing much of the family farm on the farmers death
My heart bleeds.
Well don't go to the NHS with that, I hear it's f***ed.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
It is almost amusing how many people who utterly loathe "producer interests" being prioritised in any other scenario suddenly go all wet when it comes to one particular type of producer.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
I feel quite sorry for the PB lefties these days. Being PB's sole Truss fan (honorary mention to Mortimer for popping in and having my back on occasion), I do feel your pain. Of course I had the moral satisfaction of knowing that Truss had at least tried to serve the country, which you don't have, given that this Government is a collection of sociopathic Britain-loathing foot fungus, but other than that, the situations are not dissimilar.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
It is almost amusing how many people who utterly loathe "producer interests" being prioritised in any other scenario suddenly go all wet when it comes to one particular type of producer.
Indeed. And the mental contortions they'll put themselves through to pretend they are not engaged in protecting producer interests to the detriments of consumers.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Regarding the number of farms impacted, I'm guessing there is a difference between the low number who will be impacted in any one year and the much higher number who could be impacted, if there was a death in the family.
It is suspected that this was done by a Chinese ship. The Chinese recently bought the ship from Russia, and the captain and crew are allegedly still Russian.
Don't worry, @Cicero said everyone in Estonia looked on pleased when Starmer started the sellout of UK interests to China. I'm sure if it was Boris he'd have said the Estonians were apoplectic with rage that Boris had allied with Russia's partner in crime and weapons supplier.
I love Cicero as one of PB's rich tapestry of eccentrics, but I must confess when I begin one of his lugubrious broadcasts from the frontline (of Estonia), I get the overpowering urge to scroll.
It's also an amazing coincidence that all of Estonia seems to agree with Lib Dem/Labour policy and loathe Tory policies. Things that just seem to naturally align, apparently.
You obviously scrolled without actually reading.. *shrug*
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
It is almost amusing how many people who utterly loathe "producer interests" being prioritised in any other scenario suddenly go all wet when it comes to one particular type of producer.
Indeed. And the mental contortions they'll put themselves through to pretend they are not engaged in protecting producer interests to the detriments of consumers.
What economics book is it in that the state not helping itself to a massive chunk of someone's assets is 'protecting producer interests'? That should be the status quo, not some sort of rare honour.
She’s utterly toast if we have a bad/freezing winter and the papers are full of stories of the granny who froze to death because Reeves took away her winter fuel allowance.
She's doomed anyway. That hair colour change was symbolic, a sign of early panic. We've had the endless lies on her CV, now the farming thing, following the WFA debacle, the pathetic fibs about the £22bn black hole, the economy is already tottering towards recession, her pro-growth policies are already failing
If she isn't booted I predict that in about 18 months, when it is obvious the growth is not coming and her insane tax proposals are actually costing money, not making it, Starmer will sacrifice her to save his own skin
But presumably Starmer knows and is on board with her agenda? He can't say "the well-known economist Rachel Reeves told me her tax rises would make us richer but it turned out to be a crock of shit, so I have sacked her" because it was obvious to the most casual observer that what was being proposed was not a pro-growth agenda and he would look like a blithering idiot to have ever thought otherwise.
EDIT: Also, I'm surprised few are as discomfited as me by the hair colour change. Of course, she's free to do it - just as she's free to, say, start wearing a beret. But it's the behaviour of a teenager or someone else self-obsessed. It's just... odd.
I'm surprised at your apparent obsession with Reeves' hair colour. To me, it's not different to a male or female politician choosing their hair colour or dressing slightly differently. Just a personal grooming choice and completely irrelevant to her seriousness of competence as chancellor. I don't find it odd at all and there's plenty more to criticise Reeves on than her hair style choices.
We seem to have a bit of an unhealthy obsession here with how female politicians look (not picking you out particularly for that, but we often seem to have discussions, it seems, of how hot - or not - female politicians are which, to me, is a wee bit icky)
It is suspected that this was done by a Chinese ship. The Chinese recently bought the ship from Russia, and the captain and crew are allegedly still Russian.
Don't worry, @Cicero said everyone in Estonia looked on pleased when Starmer started the sellout of UK interests to China. I'm sure if it was Boris he'd have said the Estonians were apoplectic with rage that Boris had allied with Russia's partner in crime and weapons supplier.
I love Cicero as one of PB's rich tapestry of eccentrics, but I must confess when I begin one of his lugubrious broadcasts from the frontline (of Estonia), I get the overpowering urge to scroll.
It's also an amazing coincidence that all of Estonia seems to agree with Lib Dem/Labour policy and loathe Tory policies. Things that just seem to naturally align, apparently.
You obviously scrolled without actually reading.. *shrug*
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Which is the dodge the government was trying to stamp out. My proposal would do that, but eliminate any need for trusts, gifts etc for farmers passing on their land to another generation.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Thank. But there's an apt point here. There's a lot of sympathy for farmers now, but there will be a lot of jealousy towards the lucky few who get upteen millions for their farms where Labour decide to build new towns on them.
I was quite impressed with Badenoch's stirring speech about downtrodden workers and the nation's indebtedness for their labours
The miners strike might have turned out so differently if we'd had Kemi on board.
Kemi can also back the miners now too after Ed Miliband scrapped what would have been the last mine left in the UK in Cumbria
Thatcher closing hundreds of uneconomic mines in the dash for gas, was genius. Miliband closes an uneconomic mine and he's a traitor.
FWIW as the grandson of a miner they would both be right to have closed the lot of them.
He didn't scrap a mine, he refused permission for a new one that clearly would have been profitable (otherwise someone wouldn't have been desperate to build it) and met all the current bollocks that these projects have to meet.
He is a repellent toad who doesn't want the UK to succeed.
Hm - I know little about this, but why is the state approving businesses or otherwise depending on the state's view of whether the business will be viable?
It's a valid question if there is substantial remediation to be done afterwards that the government might have to pick up if the firm collapses.
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
See my example from earlier today - the 3 daughters (none of whom are farmers) will pocket £5m when the farm is sold. I was going to say CGT would be due but it isn't the valuation will be based on the value in June when they inherited it.
I was quite impressed with Badenoch's stirring speech about downtrodden workers and the nation's indebtedness for their labours
The miners strike might have turned out so differently if we'd had Kemi on board.
Kemi can also back the miners now too after Ed Miliband scrapped what would have been the last mine left in the UK in Cumbria
Thatcher closing hundreds of uneconomic mines in the dash for gas, was genius. Miliband closes an uneconomic mine and he's a traitor.
FWIW as the grandson of a miner they would both be right to have closed the lot of them.
He didn't scrap a mine, he refused permission for a new one that clearly would have been profitable (otherwise someone wouldn't have been desperate to build it) and met all the current bollocks that these projects have to meet.
He is a repellent toad who doesn't want the UK to succeed.
Hm - I know little about this, but why is the state approving businesses or otherwise depending on the state's view of whether the business will be viable?
It's a valid question if there is substantial remediation to be done afterwards that the government might have to pick up if the firm collapses.
Why not request that the company takes out a bond to cover such eventualities?
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "absolutely" still confident in Chancellor Rachel Reeves after her financial plans sparked rows with pensioners, farmers and employers.
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
I'd like the Tories to be fit for office once more, sooner rather than later.
But so far it seems the idea of many Tories seems to be that Labour will be so repellent that the voters will go back to the Tories immediately with no changes necessary.
She’s utterly toast if we have a bad/freezing winter and the papers are full of stories of the granny who froze to death because Reeves took away her winter fuel allowance.
She's doomed anyway. That hair colour change was symbolic, a sign of early panic. We've had the endless lies on her CV, now the farming thing, following the WFA debacle, the pathetic fibs about the £22bn black hole, the economy is already tottering towards recession, her pro-growth policies are already failing
If she isn't booted I predict that in about 18 months, when it is obvious the growth is not coming and her insane tax proposals are actually costing money, not making it, Starmer will sacrifice her to save his own skin
But presumably Starmer knows and is on board with her agenda? He can't say "the well-known economist Rachel Reeves told me her tax rises would make us richer but it turned out to be a crock of shit, so I have sacked her" because it was obvious to the most casual observer that what was being proposed was not a pro-growth agenda and he would look like a blithering idiot to have ever thought otherwise.
EDIT: Also, I'm surprised few are as discomfited as me by the hair colour change. Of course, she's free to do it - just as she's free to, say, start wearing a beret. But it's the behaviour of a teenager or someone else self-obsessed. It's just... odd.
I'm surprised at your apparent obsession with Reeves' hair colour. To me, it's not different to a male or female politician choosing their hair colour or dressing slightly differently. Just a personal grooming choice and completely irrelevant to her seriousness of competence as chancellor. I don't find it odd at all and there's plenty more to criticise Reeves on than her hair style choices.
We seem to have a bit of an unhealthy obsession here with how female politicians look (not picking you out particularly for that, but we often seem to have discussions, it seems, of how hot - or not - female politicians are which, to me, is a wee bit icky)
I've noticed an increasing number of older people (and Reeves is not that) even going for unnatural pinks and greens and other colours for their hair, which in the realm of personal style choices is far less glaring than some (prominent facial tattoos for example), so simple dyeing from people of all ages seems to be no big deal to me.
I don't have any issue acknowledging if I find particular politicians attractive or not, though given the demographics at play it'd be better if there were more female or gay voices willing to weigh in as well to ensure a good cross section of political attractiveness.
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "absolutely" still confident in Chancellor Rachel Reeves after her financial plans sparked rows with pensioners, farmers and employers.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Thank. But there's an apt point here. There's a lot of sympathy for farmers now, but there will be a lot of jealousy towards the lucky few who get upteen millions for their farms where Labour decide to build new towns on them.
I don't really take sides on this one - there are arguments for and against (and the use of farms as tax shelters for the very rich is certainly egregious). I just think it's too important a policy area to barrel into without any serious thought, which seems to be the case here. Note that all today's discussion of how the policy might be modified to improve it seem to have been non existent in government.
And I'm not convinced by the argument that farming represents such a small part of the economy that it doesn't matter. Farming covers something like 70% of the UK's land. The future of a few thousand farming families might not be important to the electorate (and while some have a decent case that they're being unfairly treated, without significant warning, it's not anywhere high on my list of priotrities, either), but the land we all live on is.
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
I'd like the Tories to be fit for office once more, sooner rather than later.
But so far it seems the idea of many Tories seems to be that Labour will be so repellent that the voters will go back to the Tories immediately with no changes necessary.
What changes do you feel are necessary? Genuinely interested - I also think changes are necessary but I am not sure whether our envisioned changes are aligned.
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
Optimism has potential benefits as well as negatives in fairness. Despairing of their prospects or direction, reasonably or otherwise, can be a bit self fulfilling, so feeling good about themselves can encourage support, help develop ideas and sell them, take advantage of government missteps. Of course, if they are overconfident they could entirely miss out on necessary reflection and rebuilding, so there's risks to it.
If the fundamentals of support for the party remain strong, confidence may be more beneficial than negative. If they have big issues - and there's plenty in Reform hoping they do - then the reverse may be true.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
The proponents of the changes advocate that farmers should use all the elaborate mechanisms to avoid the IHT - gifts, trusts and companies.
Setting up and maintaining such structures is not free. In addition, the normal operating purchases and sales of food, materials and equipment by/from the farms will be complicated. Complicated usually equals cost.
Trusts don’t help, as (IIRC) you pay CGT on entry to the trust & a 6% charge every decade on assets inside the trust. Companies don’t either because your heirs will pay 20% IHT on the company valuation under the new rules from next year.
The only way around IHT is to gift your assets to your heirs more than seven years before your death, same as everyone else.
(NB, there is another getout - if you’re sufficiently rich you get your estate designated as a national asset and then you can pass it on to your heirs tax free. In reality this only gets applied to the aristocracy & not us ordinary types - the privileges of the landed gentry must apparently be preserved come what may.)
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
I'd like the Tories to be fit for office once more, sooner rather than later.
But so far it seems the idea of many Tories seems to be that Labour will be so repellent that the voters will go back to the Tories immediately with no changes necessary.
Partly, it's comforting.
Partly, Starmer is not good at politics, so the "pain now for gain later" strategy (which I think is the right one) is going to have to do a lot of work.
And ultimately, history is on the side of Conservative copium. Cross out Tony Blair MP on "I'm Tory Plan B" grounds, and Labour governments don't have a good record of being re-elected. That was in the days when the Conservatives didn't have a RefUK question to answer, though.
"One vital function of bureaucracy is as a substitute for social trust, especially at scale. And as “post-liberal” critics such as Patrick Deneen have observed, a liberal social order that declines to embrace a unified moral vision will end up bureaucratising those aspects of life that would elsewhere be governed by morality. Grievance procedures, HR departments, safeguarding, and so on all formalise governance in some aspect of public social and moral life in which we no longer agree on the common good, and hence don’t trust those in power to pursue that good. We view procedures as more neutral than people; hence instead of needing to argue morality, make judgements, or form relationships, we increasingly rely on these purportedly neutral, impersonal mechanisms to do it for us."
If only five hundred farms each year are going to be affected, and most of them can avoid it by tax planning, then what's the fucking point in doing it?
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Which is the dodge the government was trying to stamp out. My proposal would do that, but eliminate any need for trusts, gifts etc for farmers passing on their land to another generation.
See:
It turns out that PB can find perfectly sensible compromises pretty quickly.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
You came to it with a fixed view, as did I actually, but I accept that. Thing is, far more people will come to it with mine.
"Sweden is sending out five million pamphlets to residents urging them to prepare for the possibility of war, with instructions on how to stockpile food and even seek shelter during a nuclear attack, as fears grow of a conflict between Russia and NATO."
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
See my example from earlier today - the 3 daughters (none of whom are farmers) will pocket £5m when the farm is sold. I was going to say CGT would be due but it isn't the valuation will be based on the value in June when they inherited it.
But that's true of any asset. Lots of assets get sold at the point of inheritance, because that is a huge letout for CGT on the whole, and IHT is basically a badly bashed about CTT.
I sold my father's house when he died, even though it had been in the family a lot longer than many of the farms HYUFD is bleating about. (And kept the field which has been in the family for still longer.)
Somehow farmland is different ...? (Apart from the food security. But IHT is a bad tool for that.)
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "absolutely" still confident in Chancellor Rachel Reeves after her financial plans sparked rows with pensioners, farmers and employers.
If only five hundred farms each year are going to be affected, and most of them can avoid it by tax planning, then what's the fucking point in doing it?
Because it has much wider implications than farming farmers.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Thank. But there's an apt point here. There's a lot of sympathy for farmers now, but there will be a lot of jealousy towards the lucky few who get upteen millions for their farms where Labour decide to build new towns on them.
I don't really take sides on this one - there are arguments for and against (and the use of farms as tax shelters for the very rich is certainly egregious). I just think it's too important a policy area to barrel into without any serious thought, which seems to be the case here. Note that all today's discussion of how the policy might be modified to improve it seem to have been non existent in government.
And I'm not convinced by the argument that farming represents such a small part of the economy that it doesn't matter. Farming covers something like 70% of the UK's land. The future of a few thousand farming families might not be important to the electorate (and while some have a decent case that they're being unfairly treated, without significant warning, it's not anywhere high on my list of priotrities, either), but the land we all live on is.
The idea of removing agricultural relief has been around for ages. George Osborne mentioned he seriously looked at it whilst at treasury and deemed he couldn't make it work politically - it would be too unpopular to be seen as against family farms. Rachel Reeves has clearly made a different calculation, but this isn't a partucularly complicated change unlike, for instance, proposals like a general asset levy which whilst preferably economically would need a lot more work to implement.
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
I'd like the Tories to be fit for office once more, sooner rather than later.
But so far it seems the idea of many Tories seems to be that Labour will be so repellent that the voters will go back to the Tories immediately with no changes necessary.
What changes do you feel are necessary? Genuinely interested - I also think changes are necessary but I am not sure whether our envisioned changes are aligned.
I think the Conservatives need to look beyond their core votes of pensioners and farmers and see how they can win back lost aspirational voters who go to work for a living.
Quite frankly the worst tax raised in the Budget was not lowering a relief on inheriting farms that didn't even exist when many farmers today inherited the farm themselves, which is relatively small change affecting few people in a small part of the economy.
The worst tax raised in the Budget was the billions taken via Employers NI, especially the vicious combination of both raising the rate and slashing the threshold at which it is paid.
Yet that is not being scrutinised like it should be, by either the Opposition or the media, as the oxygen of publicity is instead going to a niche interest group.
There's a part of me that almost wonders if that was Machiavellian genius by Labour. Do the farm tax as a distraction knowing most people will think "well I'm not a farmer so it doesn't affect me" as a distraction so that people completely ignore wages getting plundered via NI which does affect them. Like a pickpocket causing a distraction to get your attention so they can take what you have.
Except I doubt they're competent enough to be that Machiavellian.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
If only he had recorded a series of Remain adverts with James May and been a face of the campaign.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Which is the dodge the government was trying to stamp out. My proposal would do that, but eliminate any need for trusts, gifts etc for farmers passing on their land to another generation.
Your proposal would mean the govt doesn't get its tax money for ages (and in practice at some point over next 50 years a Tory govt would let people off the hook).
Rachel Reeves wants to fill in the budget hole starting from now.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Which is the dodge the government was trying to stamp out. My proposal would do that, but eliminate any need for trusts, gifts etc for farmers passing on their land to another generation.
See:
It turns out that PB can find perfectly sensible compromises pretty quickly.
Once again, I suggest the following -
Monetise PB as a “Road test & debug your policy proposals” group.
Policies are presented to a non-public board, with membership selected from PB. The membership of the board share in the fee for their services.
I think that wealthy land owners who have tenant farmers, but only charge them a peppercorn rent, should have that part of their estate exempt from inheritance tax
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Which is the dodge the government was trying to stamp out. My proposal would do that, but eliminate any need for trusts, gifts etc for farmers passing on their land to another generation.
Your proposal would mean the govt doesn't get its tax money for ages (and in practice at some point over next 50 years a Tory govt would let people off the hook).
Rachel Reeves wants to fill in the budget hole starting from now.
The advocates of the policy say that very few farms will be affected.
If few farms will be affected, how will it fill any budget holes?
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
I'd like the Tories to be fit for office once more, sooner rather than later.
But so far it seems the idea of many Tories seems to be that Labour will be so repellent that the voters will go back to the Tories immediately with no changes necessary.
What changes do you feel are necessary? Genuinely interested - I also think changes are necessary but I am not sure whether our envisioned changes are aligned.
I think the Conservatives need to look beyond their core votes of pensioners and farmers and see how they can win back lost aspirational voters who go to work for a living.
Quite frankly the worst tax raised in the Budget was not lowering a relief on inheriting farms that didn't even exist when many farmers today inherited the farm themselves, which is relatively small change affecting few people in a small part of the economy.
The worst tax raised in the Budget was the billions taken via Employers NI, especially the vicious combination of both raising the rate and slashing the threshold at which it is paid.
Yet that is not being scrutinised like it should be, by either the Opposition or the media, as the oxygen of publicity is instead going to a niche interest group.
There's a part of me that almost wonders if that was Machiavellian genius by Labour. Do the farm tax as a distraction knowing most people will think "well I'm not a farmer so it doesn't affect me" as a distraction so that people completely ignore wages getting plundered via NI which does affect them. Like a pickpocket causing a distraction to get your attention so they can take what you have.
Except I doubt they're competent enough to be that Machiavellian.
Interesting and I don’t disagree completely. But I do think both are important and both should be opposed.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
If only he had recorded a series of Remain adverts with James May and been a face of the campaign.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
"Sweden is sending out five million pamphlets to residents urging them to prepare for the possibility of war, with instructions on how to stockpile food and even seek shelter during a nuclear attack, as fears grow of a conflict between Russia and NATO."
On Monday, millions of Swedes will start receiving copies of a pamphlet advising the population how to prepare and cope in the event of war or another unexpected crisis.
“In case of crisis or war” has been updated from six years ago because of what the government in Stockholm calls the worsening security situation, by which it means Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The booklet is also twice the size.
Neighbouring Finland has also just published its own fresh advice online on “preparing for incidents and crises”.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
If only he had recorded a series of Remain adverts with James May and been a face of the campaign.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
Yes, it was tokenistic rather than strategic. They should have realised that his sensibility was the way to reach swing voters instead of project fear.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
If only he had recorded a series of Remain adverts with James May and been a face of the campaign.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
If only five hundred farms each year are going to be affected, and most of them can avoid it by tax planning, then what's the fucking point in doing it?
To prevent farms being used as a store of wealth for the rich. That should really be the case for houses too, but that ship has sailed with private residence relief (both IHT and CHT)
Is the $11 Billion Online Sportsbook Bubble About to Burst? From Vegas to the black market to the apps in your pocket, inside the sports betting boom that’s taken over America.
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Or an IHT “charge”. If any of the exempted property is disposed of within 50 years of the previous owners death, the tax becomes due at the time of sale.
Yep:
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
Which is the dodge the government was trying to stamp out. My proposal would do that, but eliminate any need for trusts, gifts etc for farmers passing on their land to another generation.
Your proposal would mean the govt doesn't get its tax money for ages (and in practice at some point over next 50 years a Tory govt would let people off the hook).
Rachel Reeves wants to fill in the budget hole starting from now.
The advocates of the policy say that very few farms will be affected.
If few farms will be affected, how will it fill any budget holes?
Because the farms affected will pay a lot of tax. If its 500 farms/year and they each pay £2m on average, then that's £1bn raised per year. I quoted some figures before that the agricultural relief cost £1.6bn in 2021/22 split across ~1700 farms.
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
If only he had recorded a series of Remain adverts with James May and been a face of the campaign.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
I raised this point on here several months ago. Leon was adamant that Clarkson would have been asked but refused because it might alienate his fan base. Sounded improbably to me but who am I to argue with Leon?
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
I raised this point on here several months ago. Leon was adamant that Clarkson would have been asked but refused because it might alienate his fan base. Sounded improbably to me but who am I to argue with Leon?
I don’t mean Clarkson personally but a campaign attuned to his aesthetic rather than Cameron’s pathetic “I don’t like Europe any more than you but we can’t cope on our own” message.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
It destroys the value of their investments as well as losing much of the family farm on the farmers death
2 million pounds becomes 1.8 million pounds . My heart bleeds.
Losing 10% of the potential income base, why would anyone bother doing it?
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "absolutely" still confident in Chancellor Rachel Reeves after her financial plans sparked rows with pensioners, farmers and employers.
I don't know why anyone is susprised about all this. When you are daft enough to rule out all the main fiscal levers all you are left with is the poor options that raise little money, harm people who don't deserve it, and are politically terribly hard to justify.
Labour dug a hole for themselves and jumped straight in.
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
If you go around accusing other people of being dumb, you should at least try and get things right yourself, otherwise you look like a bit of an arse.
For estates worth > £2million only the residence portion of the nil rate band tapers off to zero. The estate still retains the ordinary nil rate band of £325k (£650k for a married couple).
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
The left is all about corporate interests now here and in the US.
And Donald Trump is the shield that will protect us against those beastly corporate interests, is that right?
The doublethink is strong on here this evening.
Please point to any post I've made that says he would? Me pointing out that the left are now the home of corporate interests isn't the same as saying Trump doesn't also represent them.
Well done Kemi. This is what winning back our lost voters looks like, not hob nobbing with whatever special or corporate interest group and donor class.
The left are coming over as extremely "nasty" in their anti-farm comments.
And they seem to think they can win a popularity context with Jeremy Clarkson (admittedly I haven’t seen a minister be quite that silly, just the outriders).
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Thank. But there's an apt point here. There's a lot of sympathy for farmers now, but there will be a lot of jealousy towards the lucky few who get upteen millions for their farms where Labour decide to build new towns on them.
I have long said we should adopt the French system. If you are having your land/house taken by compulsory purchase then you should get a fixed multiple of the value of the land (before any plans for development) in compensation. In France it is 1.5x the value. Personally I think maybe 2x wuld be a better compensation for the upheaval. Currently in the UK compensation will often not be sufficient to allow the houseowner to buy a similar property nearby.
In addition the State should have to make the offer of buying the whole property, not just the bit it wants. It is not unknown for compulsory purchase to leave a farmer with an uneconomic remnent of land which is effectively worthless. There is a system by which this is supposed to be taken into account but it often doesn't work to the landowners advantage.
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
Cheers, I'll stop being arse now...
Small seems to be in the eye of the beholder is a < 2 mill farm small, probably... but if 34% are below a million it might be easier to say less than a million is a 'small-farm' . They should easily stay under the threshold with all the allowances in play. But its all semantics, yes?
On the average farm size the UK gov reports it to be ~200 acres this seems to be heavily skewed by high acreage holdings, more than 25% are > 400 acre and a big wedge of those above 1000. Most the farmed UK land is pastoral so £10k an acre is a big assumption its much closer to £7.5k. But yes with all the farming paraphernalia the average farm is probably drawing close to the threshold but the median farm seems unlikely to exceed it.
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
If you go around accusing other people of being dumb, you should at least try and get things right yourself, otherwise you look like a bit of an arse.
For estates worth > £2million only the residence portion of the nil rate band tapers off to zero. The estate still retains the ordinary nil rate band of £325k (£650k for a married couple).
(This post is now a hostage to fortune naturally: anyone want to give odds on my being wrong instead?)
You are right but you are repeating exactly what I said. So not sure what point you are trying to make. The nil band rate is not the £325K, only the £175K. The £325K is the basic inheritence tax allowance which is entirely separate.
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
Cheers, I'll stop being arse now...
Small seems to be in the eye of the beholder is a < 2 mill farm small, probably... but if 34% are below a million it might be easier to say less than a million is a 'small-farm' . They should easily stay under the threshold with all the allowances in play. But its all semantics, yes?
On the average farm size the UK gov reports it to be ~200 acres this seems to be heavily skewed by high acreage holdings, more than 25% are > 400 acre and a big wedge of those above 1000. Most the farmed UK land is pastoral so £10k an acre is a big assumption its much closer to £7.5k. But yes with all the farming paraphernalia the average farm is probably drawing close to the threshold but the median farm seems unlikely to exceed it.
Wonderful interview of Jeremy Clarkson by Victoria Derbyshire. It'll be a while before the farmers allow him to represent them in an interview.
VB is a surprisingly good interviewer. Fearless and well informed. One of BBC's best now.
It was always said in a less enlightened time that she only had a face for radio. A great pity because TV missed out on quite a talent
LOL!!! You think he suffered from that interview? You have no sense of how most people perceive him do you?
You couldn't possibly have seen the interview if that's what you say happened. He just kept bashing the BBC until she asked him what could be done about people like him who bought land to avoid tax. He spluttered and said "'Typical BBC! Where did you get that nonsense from?"'. "From an interview which you gave to the Sunday Times in 2021" at which point he attempted to rally the audience back onside but simply ended up looking not only ridiculous but a liar to boot
The disdain for Clarkson goes a long way to explain why Remain lost the referendum. A Clarksonesque Remain campaign would have had a much higher ceiling.
If only he had recorded a series of Remain adverts with James May and been a face of the campaign.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
Yes, it was tokenistic rather than strategic. They should have realised that his sensibility was the way to reach swing voters instead of project fear.
Remain was lost with Cameron's 'renegotiaton'. Anything more than the naked shafting we got with that would have been voted for in droves, and Cameron declared a national hero and given an open-top bus parade.
Cameron was a committed europhile, wanted Britain all in, and didn't want us to be semi-detached. So he played for the highest stakes, and he lost.
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
If you go around accusing other people of being dumb, you should at least try and get things right yourself, otherwise you look like a bit of an arse.
For estates worth > £2million only the residence portion of the nil rate band tapers off to zero. The estate still retains the ordinary nil rate band of £325k (£650k for a married couple).
(This post is now a hostage to fortune naturally: anyone want to give odds on my being wrong instead?)
You are right but you are repeating exactly what I said. So not sure what point you are trying to make. The nil band rate is not the £325K, only the £175K. The £325K is the basic inheritence tax allowance which is entirely separate.
It’s clear from the HMRC document I linked to that tax people call the first £325k the “nil rate band” and the £175k you get extra if you pass on a residential property the “residential nil rate band”.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
The proponents of the changes advocate that farmers should use all the elaborate mechanisms to avoid the IHT - gifts, trusts and companies.
Setting up and maintaining such structures is not free. In addition, the normal operating purchases and sales of food, materials and equipment by/from the farms will be complicated. Complicated usually equals cost.
The simple reason for IHT relief is that forcing them to sell assets to pay tax undermines the viability of the farm. We have reliefs for private businesses so the heirs aren’t forced to sell to pay tax, Farma should be treated the same
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
It destroys the value of their investments as well as losing much of the family farm on the farmers death
2 million pounds becomes 1.8 million pounds . My heart bleeds.
Losing 10% of the potential income base, why would anyone bother doing it?
Over a lifetime, that is a very small % per year.
Over a generation (assuming that the inherited farm is then passed on in turn), rather than over an entire lifetime. But even so, that's going to work out at just under .3% a year, so is about half of the charge on assets in trust, as per Phil's post above.
The left are coming over as extremely "nasty" in their anti-farm comments.
And they seem to think they can win a popularity context with Jeremy Clarkson (admittedly I haven’t seen a minister be quite that silly, just the outriders).
This Government couldn't win a popularity contest with a urinary tract infection.
Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027
Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.
Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.
Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.
We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.
We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land
Congratulations.
That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.
Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.
It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people
"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"
Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.
I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.
And American food isn't even cheap now....
It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.
Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.
Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.
But hence the anger over this measure.
That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.
Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!
How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?
The proponents of the changes advocate that farmers should use all the elaborate mechanisms to avoid the IHT - gifts, trusts and companies.
Setting up and maintaining such structures is not free. In addition, the normal operating purchases and sales of food, materials and equipment by/from the farms will be complicated. Complicated usually equals cost.
The simple reason for IHT relief is that forcing them to sell assets to pay tax undermines the viability of the farm. We have reliefs for private businesses so the heirs aren’t forced to sell to pay tax, Farma should be treated the same
The 100% reliefs for private businesses are also going away - they will be subject to the same 20% IHT as agricultural land for valuations over £1million IIRC.
People often ask for a definition of woke-ness. Here's one from John Gray in the New Statesman.
"Woke – or, as it is more accurately described, hyper-liberalism – is a radical secular avatar of Christianity, in which the Protestant affirmation of personal autonomy in matters of belief has morphed into the assertion that truth is subjective."
Dan Neidle’s going for it on APR. I suspect his TwiX follower count is taking a hit.
Here’s what he’s just posted on LinkedIn.
The Country Land and Business Association says the new £1m cap on agricultural inheritance tax relief will "harm 70,000 farms". That's 1/3 of all farms.
What does the actual data show? Less than 500 farms/year will pay more tax as a result of this change every year. Possibly as few as 100.
Why 500? Because this table shows only 500 farm estates claimed agricultural property relief (APR) of more than £1m in 2022.
But that overstates the issue. Married couples can easily claim the £1m cap twice. Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band. So for a married couple running a farm, it could be worth £2.65m before the restriction on the relief costs them a penny.
That could mean as few as 100 farms per year are affected. And the 20% tax is only on the excess over the threshold, so for most of the 100, the additional tax will be reasonably small. Insure against it when you're young(ish). Give some/all to your kids when you get older.
And the data shows that most of the cost of the tax increase will be borne by a few very large estates. In 2022 2% of agricultural estates - just 37 - claimed an average of £6m.
That's what this is really about - not 70,000 farms. So let's drop the hyperbolic fake stats.
All of which means, of course, that it won’t raise much money either. Whereas BPR…
Neidle is talking bollocks - and of course doing so on behalf of the Labour Party as he sits on their National Constitutional Committee. The idea he is some sort of independent expert is garbage.
Which bit is bollocks? The numbers seem plausible enough and are taken from recent historical data, rather than hypotheticals.
Dan’s analysis on most topics in the last year or so has been pretty objective and usually technically spot on. He also makes use of a large range of tax specialists who prefer to keep out of the limelight when he’s commenting on areas he’s not an expert in. He has both publicly rubbished various allegations of tax avoidance or evasion against Tory MPs, and been extremely critical of the NI changes, so the evidence he’s just spouting Labour propaganda is pretty thin.
Yep, Tyndall is being an arse.
If that is the sum total of your contribution to this debate then probably best if you just admit it and fuck off now.
You are being an arse. Unless you want to actually say why Neidle's claims are wrong and not just call bias?
I already explained why but you are clearly too dumb to understand.
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
Cheers, I'll stop being arse now...
Small seems to be in the eye of the beholder is a < 2 mill farm small, probably... but if 34% are below a million it might be easier to say less than a million is a 'small-farm' . They should easily stay under the threshold with all the allowances in play. But its all semantics, yes?
On the average farm size the UK gov reports it to be ~200 acres this seems to be heavily skewed by high acreage holdings, more than 25% are > 400 acre and a big wedge of those above 1000. Most the farmed UK land is pastoral so £10k an acre is a big assumption its much closer to £7.5k. But yes with all the farming paraphernalia the average farm is probably drawing close to the threshold but the median farm seems unlikely to exceed it.
I don't see where Neidle is talking bollocks.
Farms are quite a bit more than their land value
"average farm size is just over 250 acres."
Should we talking about average rather than median?
There's presumably some tail end landowners with f*ck off size estates here?
Well done Kemi. This is what winning back our lost voters looks like, not hob nobbing with whatever special or corporate interest group and donor class.
Farmers are not a "special interest group"?? I would have thought they were one of the originals, surely?
I have an idea fir a compromise. Farmers can designate their land as Public Interest Land. If they do that land is exempt from IHT completely. But there is a catch. If they obtain planning permussion for any land they pay extra tax when they sell it. And they have to agree to not plough up SSSIs, block public footpaths, rip out hedgerows etc.
An interesting idea. Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Thank. But there's an apt point here. There's a lot of sympathy for farmers now, but there will be a lot of jealousy towards the lucky few who get upteen millions for their farms where Labour decide to build new towns on them.
I have long said we should adopt the French system. If you are having your land/house taken by compulsory purchase then you should get a fixed multiple of the value of the land (before any plans for development) in compensation. In France it is 1.5x the value. Personally I think maybe 2x wuld be a better compensation for the upheaval. Currently in the UK compensation will often not be sufficient to allow the houseowner to buy a similar property nearby.
In addition the State should have to make the offer of buying the whole property, not just the bit it wants. It is not unknown for compulsory purchase to leave a farmer with an uneconomic remnent of land which is effectively worthless. There is a system by which this is supposed to be taken into account but it often doesn't work to the landowners advantage.
There’s a lot in that. Let the dislocated home owners make some money so you don’t have to pay 500 times that in fighting a planning battle.
My wife and I love our house but twice market value would overcome some sentimentality on our side.
Comments
Setting up and maintaining such structures is not free. In addition, the normal operating purchases and sales of food, materials and equipment by/from the farms will be complicated. Complicated usually equals cost.
That's how El Gord survived 10 years as Tony's Chancellor, despite being rude and obnoxious and probably having a borderline personality disorder...
Worth having been discussed prior to the introduction of the tax change.
Earth
Hackney
London
Be here now
And also on PB
@KemiBadenoch
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1h
Today I spoke to thousands of farmers to relay a simple message👇
Labour don’t get farming. Their family farm tax is going to destroy farming as we know it.
If we want to reverse this, we’re going to have to fight.
Help us: http://stopthefarmtax.com
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1858932954078368022
Kafka predicted our age of petty tyranny"
https://unherd.com/2024/11/welcome-to-thought-police-britain/
This should be the big one, because I will bet you that a very large number of farms are sold shortly after having benefited from the IHT exemption.
We seem to have a bit of an unhealthy obsession here with how female politicians look (not picking you out particularly for that, but we often seem to have discussions, it seems, of how hot - or not - female politicians are which, to me, is a wee bit icky)
"After their catastrophic election defeat in July, you might expect to find the Tories fearful about the future. But that’s not the picture revealed by the latest ConservativeHome survey of party members.
An astonishing 38% of those canvassed expect a Conservative majority at the next election — a huge surge of optimism since the immediate aftermath of the party’s landslide defeat, when only 17% expected to win a majority next time. What’s more, this month’s survey shows that a further 18% of members foresee a Conservative-led coalition government and 11% a Conservative minority government. So just a few months after the Labour landslide, most Conservatives expect to be back in power before the end of the decade — which is bold.
https://unherd.com/newsroom/excessive-tory-optimism-ramps-up-pressure-on-kemi-badenoch/
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "absolutely" still confident in Chancellor Rachel Reeves after her financial plans sparked rows with pensioners, farmers and employers.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1858965884515348703
I'd like the Tories to be fit for office once more, sooner rather than later.
But so far it seems the idea of many Tories seems to be that Labour will be so repellent that the voters will go back to the Tories immediately with no changes necessary.
I don't have any issue acknowledging if I find particular politicians attractive or not, though given the demographics at play it'd be better if there were more female or gay voices willing to weigh in as well to ensure a good cross section of political attractiveness.
I just think it's too important a policy area to barrel into without any serious thought, which seems to be the case here. Note that all today's discussion of how the policy might be modified to improve it seem to have been non existent in government.
And I'm not convinced by the argument that farming represents such a small part of the economy that it doesn't matter. Farming covers something like 70% of the UK's land. The future of a few thousand farming families might not be important to the electorate (and while some have a decent case that they're being unfairly treated, without significant warning, it's not anywhere high on my list of priotrities, either), but the land we all live on is.
If the fundamentals of support for the party remain strong, confidence may be more beneficial than negative. If they have big issues - and there's plenty in Reform hoping they do - then the reverse may be true.
The only way around IHT is to gift your assets to your heirs more than seven years before your death, same as everyone else.
(NB, there is another getout - if you’re sufficiently rich you get your estate designated as a national asset and then you can pass it on to your heirs tax free. In reality this only gets applied to the aristocracy & not us ordinary types - the privileges of the landed gentry must apparently be preserved come what may.)
Partly, Starmer is not good at politics, so the "pain now for gain later" strategy (which I think is the right one) is going to have to do a lot of work.
And ultimately, history is on the side of Conservative copium. Cross out Tony Blair MP on "I'm Tory Plan B" grounds, and Labour governments don't have a good record of being re-elected. That was in the days when the Conservatives didn't have a RefUK question to answer, though.
"One vital function of bureaucracy is as a substitute for social trust, especially at scale. And as “post-liberal” critics such as Patrick Deneen have observed, a liberal social order that declines to embrace a unified moral vision will end up bureaucratising those aspects of life that would elsewhere be governed by morality. Grievance procedures, HR departments, safeguarding, and so on all formalise governance in some aspect of public social and moral life in which we no longer agree on the common good, and hence don’t trust those in power to pursue that good. We view procedures as more neutral than people; hence instead of needing to argue morality, make judgements, or form relationships, we increasingly rely on these purportedly neutral, impersonal mechanisms to do it for us."
It turns out that PB can find perfectly sensible compromises pretty quickly.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14096437/Sweden-citizens-prepare-WAR-Pamphlets-stockpile-food-water-sent-five-million-households-growing-fears-NATO-Russia-conflict.html
I sold my father's house when he died, even though it had been in the family a lot longer than many of the farms HYUFD is bleating about. (And kept the field which has been in the family for still longer.)
Somehow farmland is different ...? (Apart from the food security. But IHT is a bad tool for that.)
Quite frankly the worst tax raised in the Budget was not lowering a relief on inheriting farms that didn't even exist when many farmers today inherited the farm themselves, which is relatively small change affecting few people in a small part of the economy.
The worst tax raised in the Budget was the billions taken via Employers NI, especially the vicious combination of both raising the rate and slashing the threshold at which it is paid.
Yet that is not being scrutinised like it should be, by either the Opposition or the media, as the oxygen of publicity is instead going to a niche interest group.
There's a part of me that almost wonders if that was Machiavellian genius by Labour. Do the farm tax as a distraction knowing most people will think "well I'm not a farmer so it doesn't affect me" as a distraction so that people completely ignore wages getting plundered via NI which does affect them. Like a pickpocket causing a distraction to get your attention so they can take what you have.
Except I doubt they're competent enough to be that Machiavellian.
Though to be fair, they were a bit embarrassed to have him.
Rachel Reeves wants to fill in the budget hole starting from now.
Monetise PB as a “Road test & debug your policy proposals” group.
Policies are presented to a non-public board, with membership selected from PB. The membership of the board share in the fee for their services.
If few farms will be affected, how will it fill any budget holes?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mzxe4dvw3o
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4zwj2lgdo
On Monday, millions of Swedes will start receiving copies of a pamphlet advising the population how to prepare and cope in the event of war or another unexpected crisis.
“In case of crisis or war” has been updated from six years ago because of what the government in Stockholm calls the worsening security situation, by which it means Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The booklet is also twice the size.
Neighbouring Finland has also just published its own fresh advice online on “preparing for incidents and crises”.
From Vegas to the black market to the apps in your pocket, inside the sports betting boom that’s taken over America.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/sports-betting-law-draftkings-fanduel-1235158334/
Let me give you one example where he is wrong.
He claims that "Small farmers without other assets can use their nil rate band". Except they can't. If the Estate is worth more than £2 million then the nil rate band tapers off to zero.
In addition the NFU - who should be in a position to know - state that the average farm size is just over 250 acres. That is around £2.5 million in land value alone without equipment. plant, livestock or the house. The average value of a farm business is well over £3 million.
Mind you I am not surprised that he is confused when even the Government can't get their numbers straight.
The Treasury has said 73% of APR claims are below £1 million and so would be unaffected by this policy. However, Defra’s figures show that only 34% of farms are under £1 million net worth.
It might be nice if the Government itself could at least get its figures straight.
They might have been in London
Labour dug a hole for themselves and jumped straight in.
For estates worth > £2million only the residence portion of the nil rate band tapers off to zero. The estate still retains the ordinary nil rate band of £325k (£650k for a married couple).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inheritance-tax-nil-rate-band-and-residence-nil-rate-bands-from-6-april-2028/inheritance-tax-nil-rate-band-residence-nil-rate-band-from-6-april-2028
(This post is now a hostage to fortune naturally: anyone want to give odds on my being wrong instead?)
In addition the State should have to make the offer of buying the whole property, not just the bit it wants. It is not unknown for compulsory purchase to leave a farmer with an uneconomic remnent of land which is effectively worthless. There is a system by which this is supposed to be taken into account but it often doesn't work to the landowners advantage.
Small seems to be in the eye of the beholder is a < 2 mill farm small, probably... but if 34% are below a million it might be easier to say less than a million is a 'small-farm' . They should easily stay under the threshold with all the allowances in play. But its all semantics, yes?
On the average farm size the UK gov reports it to be ~200 acres this seems to be heavily skewed by high acreage holdings, more than 25% are > 400 acre and a big wedge of those above 1000. Most the farmed UK land is pastoral so £10k an acre is a big assumption its much closer to £7.5k. But yes with all the farming paraphernalia the average farm is probably drawing close to the threshold but the median farm seems unlikely to exceed it.
I don't see where Neidle is talking bollocks.
Why the farmers’ protest probably won’t work"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-farmers-protest-probably-wont-work/
Cameron was a committed europhile, wanted Britain all in, and didn't want us to be semi-detached. So he played for the highest stakes, and he lost.
This HMRC pdf makes this even more clear: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b768e38ed915d14d289cf9c/IHT400_rates_and_tables.pdf
It is you who have misunderstood Dan Neidle I think.
"Woke – or, as it is more accurately described, hyper-liberalism – is a radical secular avatar of Christianity, in which the Protestant affirmation of personal autonomy in matters of belief has morphed into the assertion that truth is subjective."
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2024/11/jordan-peterson-prophecies-we-who-wrestle-with-god-review
Should we talking about average rather than median?
There's presumably some tail end landowners with f*ck off size estates here?
My wife and I love our house but twice market value would overcome some sentimentality on our side.