[News] Farmers

[Ike and Tina Burner]

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.

This policy won't help with this in any way. The small parcels of land that will be sold off to cover the tax will not be big enough for any realistic commercial farm to exist on. They'll more likely fall out of farming use. The fact this argument is being trotted out shows a level of ignorance amongst those defending the tax.

 

[ManOfSussex]

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.

If they see a field with a pond, with a family having a picnic, they fill the pond with concrete, plough the family into the field, blow up the tree and use the leaves to make a dress for their wife who's also their brother.

 

[Ike and Tina Burner]

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

The left's policy of envy has been replaced with the policy of bare faced revenge. What a way to run a country.

 

[jcdenton08]

How did all these farmers survive up until 1992 when the millionaires loophole was introduced?

Brexit has heightened the challenges facing farmers, but there’s lots of issues farmers will tell you about if you listen to their side. Massively rising costs vs stagnant prices is a huge problem. Energy costs, fuel costs, costs of feed, minimum wage costs for manual labour - all of these have risen enormously against the price received for meat, milk and produce generally.

With competition so fierce and the growth of supermarkets/death of things like milk rounds with fixed pricing since the 1990’s, wholesalers and supermarkets are paying far far less than they were in 1992 adjusted for inflation. And costs have risen far far more than inflation.

Then there’s globalisation, where suppliers and supermarkets can get goods from worldwide far cheaper than UK farms can produce them even when sold at barely break-even.

Farming is under enormous pressure and most farmers will tell you, quite apart from this new business, that the British farming sector is under incredible strain and has been for a while.

This reeks to me of the government going way OTT on the wrong targets, once again.

 

[Guinness Boy]

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.

No it isn't. A "rural farm" is still a business. These are not simple peasant folk with smocks and a bit of grass in their mouth.

They will need to know how to run a business. They will need a business plan, stock plan, to fill in (ironically) other tax forms, to understand their costs from fuel to maintenance to crops. They may not be accountants but they will have an accountant. Without all of that they'd already be bust, rather than moaning about the possibility of going bust due to IHT (spoiler, over 70% of them won't have a liability and anyone can get round it with a one off trip to a solicitor or financial advisor).

 

[jcdenton08]

If they see a field with a pond, with a family having a picnic, they fill the pond with concrete, plough the family into the field, blow up the tree and use the leaves to make a dress for their wife who's also their brother.

I’ve got more friends than you’ve got cows.

 

[dazzer6666]

Brexit has heightened the challenges facing farmers, but there’s lots of issues farmers will tell you about if you listen to their side. Massively rising costs vs stagnant prices is a huge problem. Energy costs, fuel costs, costs of feed, minimum wage costs for manual labour - all of these have risen enormously against the price received for meat, milk and produce generally.

With competition so fierce and the growth of supermarkets/death of things like milk rounds with fixed pricing since the 1990’s, wholesalers and supermarkets are paying far far less than they were in 1992 adjusted for inflation. And costs have risen far far more than inflation.

Then there’s globalisation, where suppliers and supermarkets can get goods from worldwide far cheaper than UK farms can produce them even when sold at barely break-even.

Farming is under enormous pressure and most farmers will tell you, quite apart from this new business, that the British farmer sector is under incredible strain and has been for a while.

This reeks to me of the government going way OTT on the wrong targets, once again.

Had a long chat with one of my old schoolmates at the weekend - her and her husband are in the process of giving up their (pig) farm. They simply can’t make it pay any more - meat prices continually squeezed by the markets, costs rising, regulation strangling them etc etc. Actively encouraged their kids away from it as they could see what was coming. Another mate who runs a chicken farm (he started when we were at school) is being absolutely stifled by regulation too and is close to packing it in.

 

[dazzer6666]

No it isn't. A "rural farm" is still a business. These are not simple peasant folk with smocks and a bit of grass in their mouth.

They will need to know how to run a business. They will need a business plan, stock plan, to fill in (ironically) other tax forms, to understand their costs from fuel to maintenance to crops. They may not be accountants but they will have an accountant. Without all of that they'd already be bust, rather than moaning about the possibility of going bust due to IHT (spoiler, over 70% of them won't have a liability and anyone can get round it with a one off trip to a solicitor or financial advisor).

IHT is more the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back………

 

[Triggaaar]

I’m not sure that’s the case ? If you were to give your primary residence to your kids in order to beat the 7 year cut off point - but you continue to live there as your primary residence- is it still exempt from inheritance tax?

For you primary residence you'd need to pay rent. But they could give the farm without the farmhouse.

 

[chip]

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

It's not just the land value either, a tractor will set you back £250000 without attachments. Like most of the budget, the ideas are OK but there has been scant attention to detail and how things would work in practice leading to pretty crappy outcomes for many. More urban tosh as far as I am concerned. Still plenty will carry on having a pop at farmers or anyone else they think has a few quid more than them.

 

[nicko31]

I think that might be a bit of a myth.

Maybe the bigger land owners, East Anglia was covered with Vote Leave posters back in 2016

 

[nicko31]

Brexit has heightened the challenges facing farmers, but there’s lots of issues farmers will tell you about if you listen to their side. Massively rising costs vs stagnant prices is a huge problem. Energy costs, fuel costs, costs of feed, minimum wage costs for manual labour - all of these have risen enormously against the price received for meat, milk and produce generally.

With competition so fierce and the growth of supermarkets/death of things like milk rounds with fixed pricing since the 1990’s, wholesalers and supermarkets are paying far far less than they were in 1992 adjusted for inflation. And costs have risen far far more than inflation.

Then there’s globalisation, where suppliers and supermarkets can get goods from worldwide far cheaper than UK farms can produce them even when sold at barely break-even.

Farming is under enormous pressure and most farmers will tell you, quite apart from this new business, that the British farming sector is under incredible strain and has been for a while.

This reeks to me of the government going way OTT on the wrong targets, once again.

Wait till the Australian quotas start kicking in with Truss's trade deal in the next 10 years, IHT on 10 years interest free credit will be the least of their problems.

 

[POSKETT AT THE VALLEY]

I'm with the farmers on this.

What’s a pub in Lancing got to do with this?

 

[dazzer6666]

Maybe the bigger land owners, East Anglia was covered with Vote Leave posters back in 2016

…..and now they can’t get enough staff to pick their veg……..

 

[jcdenton08]

Wait till the Australian quotas start kicking in with Truss's trade deal in the next 10 years, IHT on 10 years interest free credit will be the least of their problems.

Well quite, but I hope I answered your question. There’s two sides to this, when you take a moment to look at it from the farmers perspective it’s clear this isn’t some huge greed issue with millionaires refusing to pay their fair share, in most cases outside of your Dyson’s and Clarkson’s, these are people barely making ends meet working enormous numbers of hours.

Their land may be worth a lot, but they are cash poor and their businesses struggling because of all the points - and more - that I just made.

And as you say, it’s only going to get worse, and now with this on top I can see why they’re very pissed off

 

[Bold Seagull]

This policy won't help with this in any way. The small parcels of land that will be sold off to cover the tax will not be big enough for any realistic commercial farm to exist on. They'll more likely fall out of farming use. The fact this argument is being trotted out shows a level of ignorance amongst those defending the tax.

So what you're saying is, the likely sized holdings of 500acres+ that might be liable for IHT in the first place will at worse only have to sell off only a small/tiny piece of that land anyway, and have 10 years to do it, in the event they haven't already planned the succession of family members to that farm before they die and eliminated the IHT liability already?

 

[dejavuatbtn]

It’ll just reduce our own self sustainability and open up the greenbelt to expensive housing development. Winners, the corporations, losers the country and its inhabitants.
This is bordering on Truss thinking.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

It’ll just reduce our own self sustainability and open up the greenbelt to expensive housing development. Winners, the corporations, losers the country and its inhabitants.
This is bordering on Truss thinking.

Better than more golf courses.

 

[Half Time Pies]

I was talking to the manager of a large farm a couple of months ago, he was telling me that the value of farmland had increased from £2000 an acre in the early 2000's to nearly £12,000 an acre in 2024. This had left his boss an extremely rich person but the problem was that the productive capacity of the farmland was now extremely low when compared with the value of farmland. Farmland should produce an economic return that is relatable to its value and the return on the capital employed, but this is now completely out of kilter. Buying farmland doesn't make economic sense based in the returns that you get, yet there is no shortage of buyers and many of them - 56% in 2023 were non-farmers (https://farming.co.uk/news/strutt--...t-more-than-half-of-farms-and-estates-in-2023). Now it doesn't take a genius to work out what's been causing all these non farming investors to pile in over the past 20 years, the inheritance tax loop-hole that buying farmland affords! Surely It therefore makes perfect sense for the government to shut this loophole and to stop the transfer of land from farmers to investors who are buying it purely as a financial instrument that allows them to minimise their taxes.

 

[Bold Seagull]

It’ll just reduce our own self sustainability and open up the greenbelt to expensive housing development. Winners, the corporations, losers the country and its inhabitants.
This is bordering on Truss thinking.

The greenbelt is protected by planning legislation not agricultural goodwill. I suspect most farm holdings have gone through some form of planning process to try to get a barn into a house, or change of use of a parcel of land etc. IHT won't change planning outcomes unless planning legislation changes.

Farming land is worth more now that it was because of it being artificially inflated because of the IHT loophole, not because you can supposedly get houses on it. A farmer can't even extend his own house beyond a certain size under planning law if it is part of an agricultural holding.