Organisers urged protesters not to bring farm machinery into central London, though some tractors drove past Downing Street covered with signs saying “the final straw” and “no farmers, no food.”
Archived version: https://archive.li/6qCeT
Oh look more entitled rich farmers who think they’re special
Why should farmers be exempt from inheritance tax? Inheritance tax is a move towards equality, to give that money to the government to equitably distribute rather than some lucky children being rich just because they had rich parents.
I was born and brought up in an extremely rural area of the westcountry, and I’m well aware of the “farmer hard times” saying as farmers drive past in e.g. brand new landrovers, but this inheritance tax change has not been thought through. Assuming a farm is liable to inheritance tax, where does the money come from without liquidating assets? Sell part of the farm? So then you have a small piece of land with agricultural use restrictions, no infrastructure, probably too small to form a separate farm. Repeat for a few generations and all the farms are then the same size, with efficiency of scale problems - not to mention where do the new farmers come from? Sell farm machinery - great, you’ve no business. Sell your stock - you’ve no business.
Much better to tax people when they are alive, on their earnings, and expand it to all earnings from any source, lumped together and charged at the relevant rate of income tax.
They get ten years to pay it, its not subject to payment in one lump sum. Its also half the usual rate of tax, and only on anything over £3m if married and using all the allowances. On a £5m farm its about £40k a year for 10 years, not insignificant but inflation over 10 years will reduce the sting of it and you can even end load it by only paying back 1% initially and more at the end to further let inflation do its thing.
Thank you for the detail - I understand it’s not necessarily due in one go, but “even” 40k per year is still not loose change that the vast majority of farmers will have lying around, and my point about having to liquidate assets still stands, whether a smaller amount of assets per year or deferred. The wealth of most farms is tied up in the land and property, and the items required to run the farm in the first place. A further point would be that if it is to be considered a small, easily repayable sum, then given the small number of farmers likely to be affected each year in the first place, why bother? It’s not a significant source of government revenue and risks driving some farms out of business, for what?
Inheritance tax is entirly escapable by doing dodgy shell company trust arrangements across different countries. It is a tax only paid by the lower and low middle class that prevents people to build intergenerational wealths and keeps the lower classes down. The farmers shouldnt be exempt but that doesnt mean they dont have a damn fine point.
Tax only applies to farms worth more than £1 million, so “lower and low middle class” are exempt.
It’s 3m of you are married and use all the allowances. Even then it’s only on the amount over that and at half the usual rate, then you get ten years to pay it back.
Inheritance tax should be amended to be also paid on trusts (and stocks and shares) then. Just because it’s currently implemented badly doesn’t mean it’s a flawed concept.
It can’t be done without the entire world banking system being complicit. Plus why should my wealth be taken away just cos i died.
Because that leads to a snowballing effect. Money begets money. Over generations, it gets sucked into an ever smaller pool of people. This (among other things) led to serfdom etc in the Middle Ages. We only broke out of that due to the Black Death.
We need a way to allow money to spread back to the general populous. An inheritance tax is a crude, but effective, way to do that.
How would you go about achieving this?
Most intergenerational wealth is lost within a few generations actually.
There would be 2 things id do to fix tax
- Resource tax for every kg of material dug/pumped out of the ground.
- Land value tax based on the developed value of the land
- If i had global control then id do a 75% capital gains tax on all gains over 5million
… cause you died and thus aren’t using it anymore.
Thats a very selfish view to take not the sort of opinion id like my parents to have.
