The quotas are often worth more than the boat.
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[News] Farmers
- Thread starter Harry Wilson's tackle
- Start date
- Oct 17, 2008
- 15,034
Call Cliff Thorburn now, please. @ManOfSussex
Team Harry
Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
I'm not saying it would be easy, but I also don't think a strategic farming future for the country should rely on farming being mainly an inheritance based succession. If we want young and aspiring farmers, then owning your own farm and business that isn't inherited has to be an aspiration.
fly high
Well-known member
OK so people want to target rich bastards like Clarkson, fine but why set such a low mark of £1m, why not just target the very rich?
Am I sympathetic to your typical family farmer? Yes, but the chances are they won't have to pay.
Am I sympathetic to tax dodgers James Dyson and Jeremy Clarkson and the landed gentry? Not at all. Pay your fair share*.
*although if you follow the advice I posted on one of the Labour thread post budget you won't even have to do that.
Am I sympathetic to tax dodgers James Dyson and Jeremy Clarkson and the landed gentry? Not at all. Pay your fair share*.
*although if you follow the advice I posted on one of the Labour thread post budget you won't even have to do that.
- Thread starter
- #127
You are a bit too left wing for me
(In an ideal world of course you are right in general terms*. My point for starting the thread has more to do with discussing the general perception, and the inevitable clamour from the right, of support for the 'poor' farmers. This support exists - as we have seen on this thread - so in that respect I was indeed 'fishing', with tiddlers swifty caught.
*And yet....take note those who accuse me of being 'clueless' - I have sympathy with anyone who finds they have to react to a change in circumstances, including farmers. It is just that the catastrophizing that some of them have decided to embrace is a tad pathetic.)
nicko31
Well-known member
So they get a generous 3m quid allowance, half the rate of IHT and 10 years interest free credit to pay the bill.
Still not happy, then gift it.
FFS - You guys voted Brexit on mass, share the pain with the rest of us will you?
Still not happy, then gift it.
FFS - You guys voted Brexit on mass, share the pain with the rest of us will you?
Last edited:
nicko31
Well-known member
Deference is still at our heart....
Has anyone checked the tractors in Westminster at the moment to make sure they're not using red diesel, given that wouldn't be allowed and they'd be avoiding yet more tax
- Oct 17, 2008
- 15,034
Isn’t the problem here that these are rural farmers, not accountants and businesspeople? They know crops, and soil, and tractors and cows and work extremely long hours for very low pay, when taken as an hourly rate.
Most farms have been in families for generations, which started as a simple plot of land but have been cultivated and developed over a long period of time by families.
nicko31
Well-known member
Nice theory but really not sure how we get say a 17 year old off to agricultural college to learn how to run a farm, then work on one earning enough - on what are crap wages - to save up a £50k (absolute minimum) deposit to buy his own farm (if there’s any lender that would even consider giving him a mortgage anyway). If it’s not in your family you aren’t going to own one.
I need to read more around this but it feels a bit like a sledgehammer to crack a nut - trying to capture the rich/VC lot who have been buying farms as a tax avoidance strategy but hitting simple farmers at the same time.
nicko31
Well-known member
How did all these farmers survive up until 1992 when the millionaires loophole was introduced?
Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
I think in farming anyone under the age of 45 can be considered a 'young farmer'. Some will potentially run successful farming consultancy or management businesses and perhaps finally own a farm.
But you're highlighting an issue if no one can see a pathway to being a successful farmer without inheriting.
Green Cross Code Man
Wunt be druv
This.
This. Or farms are bought up increasingly by large corporations which will decrease variety and increase the public being fleeced by those said corporations.
Still dont understand that some think it would be right for Clarkson to buy a farm for £5m and then qualify to pay no inheritance tax. If government have evidence loads of wealthy people are doing this surely its about time this loop hole was closed.
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,970
I think that might be a bit of a myth.
What a load of uninformed twaddle!
The value of a farm has nothing to do with the earning capacity and if it is passed down through generations its value is essentially meaningless. The average return on capital in farming is less than 1%. There is no other industry that could survive on that but family farms do because they work crazy hours and are prepared to earn very little. We take advantage of that by demanding cheap food, often at a level below the cost of production. Farming has the highest fatality rate of any industry partly due to excessive tiredness from working hours that would be illegal elsewhere in the economy. Also the highest suicide rate - but DIDDUMS to that!
No one will be able to inherit the family farm and afford to pay the IHT. The income is just not there. So the land will be sold but will not be purchased by another farmer as it is impossible to buy land and farm it profitably. eg An acre of arable land is worth c.£12000. That acre will deliver c.£600 of total wheat output (ie before all growing and business costs are deducted). Do the maths. So the land is lost to food production - where is your onion going to come from?!
But the demos are not just about IHT but this has been the final straw for an industry that has been hammered by successive governments, is seriously struggling to survive (unless you are the likes of dyson or Goodwood estates) and yet we all need to eat!
There are perhaps many people or even professions that you could accuse of being entitled - farmers are certainly not one of them
WestYorkshireSeagull
Active member
- Dec 28, 2021
- 98
If only we had some kind of (EU)Union that gave subsidies, protections and export/import agreements to make life easier.
Thankfully they'll be alright, being professionals at reaping what they sow
Thankfully they'll be alright, being professionals at reaping what they sow