Bang out of order if you ask me
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/sk...-protests.html
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Bang out of order if you ask me
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/sk...-protests.html
But I thought the left enjoyed a good demo and protest?Quote:
Originally Posted by SithHappens
Even the French make a career out of it with tractors?
Thing is, when I worked on a farm, if there were the materials to make something like that, on a slow wednesday afto they'd probably make one.Quote:
Originally Posted by SithHappens
Funny clip…but seriously - and without just more Starmer/Reeves bashing - where do those more economically inclined - AF, Swale, GP, (non sh*t stirring version) - stand on this one. I can see both sides but quite possibly not clearly enough.
As I understand it most farms will be okay up to ?3m and then have to pay 20% inheritance tax. On the other hand, with agricultural land being worth about ?11k per acre, farm machinery being worth astronomical amounts and, for dairy and beef farmers, a single beast costing around ?1500 it’s easy to see how they can rapidly reach the ceiling.
I'll give this more thought as combining financial knowledge with coming from a multi generational farming background (on both sides) I've seen first hand what tax planning (or lack of it) can do.
But consider this - it's farmers who own the lion's share of the land that they farm and wish to pass on to another generation that will be most impacted. Changes in BADR are likely more an issue than changes to IHT for most tenant farmers - depending on whether in pre 1984 secure / succession tenancies.
Farms by definition are asset rich (consider a new combine can be up to 750k and be in use maybe no more than 10% of year) liability heavy and cash poor, so it's easy to destabilize the passing on of a business between generations Ms Reeves may well have managed this!
It seems like both the UK and NL governments are doing their level best to reduce the number of farmers. Many people seem to take this to mean less land being farmed. I don't think it will. Where the family wish to continue to farm the land themselves, they will bite the bullet, pay the tax and continue to farm. Where they don't wish to they'll sell the land to.... who? A neighbouring farmer who will farm the land as well as his own? A conglomerate that buys farmland and becomes a large farming PLC?
Is this just the next move to manoeuvre yet more infrastructure etc into ownership of the top 10% ?
RA I've basically copied a summary from the Guardian (duly admitted so I don't get the plagiarism charge).
Since 1992, agricultural property relief (APR) has meant family farms have been passed down tax-free in a policy intended to bolster food security and keep people on the land. This tax exemption was made because farming is often not a lucrative business, and the work is difficult, so people often do it simply because it is the family business. If farmers sell up, this affects food security. The UK now produces less than 60% of the food its inhabitants eat.
The budget changed this: from 6 April 2026, the full 100% relief from inheritance tax will be restricted to the first ?1m of combined agricultural and business property. Above this amount, landowners will pay inheritance tax at a reduced rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40%. This tax can be paid in instalments over 10 years interest free, rather than immediately, as with other types of inheritance tax. Source Helena Horton Guardian 19/11/24
I've also read in detail the explanation by the tax expert Dan Neidel who broadly agrees with the government view that it shouldn't affect the majority of farms who plan for it.
My view is that it applied before and the application now is still much less onerous than other businesses who don't get such generous terms. Having been brought up in a rural area and having worked on farms and with a brother who currently farms on a small scale, I'm used to Farmers grumbling about everything and making a loss every year so they don't pay tax!! Yet have been the recipient of billions of tax payers money over the decades, it seems fair enough that the larger and wealthier ones pay a bit of tax.
I seriously question whether many small farms are actually viable anyway, my brother openly admits he wouldn't have survived without the subsidies, if he sells as he retires, it won't affect him.
When you get people like Clarkson moaning, who openly admitted he bought his farm to reduce his tax liability, it colours the picture. There was certainly a big loophole, which has led to individuals like James Dyson for instance, buying farmland again because its tax efficient.
Interesting responses and interesting too that the NL would seem to be facing similar questions.
Personally I tend to agree with Swale/the Guardian’s response, not least where the comments about Clarkson and Dyson are concerned, but I accept that, despite also having worked on a couple of farms and being surrounded by farmland, I just don’t actually understand enough.
I await further clarification from GP who has twin levels of expertise but also, perhaps, bias.
One further observation. The new government does seem to have a problem with communication as their inability to communicate the reasoning behind decisions relating to the WFA, the Budget as a whole and, more specifically, this whole farm inheritance matter, seems to suggest. Doesn’t, in itself, make any of their decisions especially flawed and things aren’t helped by the anti-Labour press, but it does need addressing imo.
Well spotted on that last point - considering there?s nearly 500 of them you would have thought they could root out a few who knew how to spin out stories a bit better. Likewise competence, there?s some real ?govt by numbers? stuff going on at the mo. Maybe they should call in the still extant 3Bs (Brown Blair and Blunkett) on the latter and dare I say Dominic Cummings on the formerQuote:
Originally Posted by ramAnag
The farmer bashing in NL is related to nitrogen levels and an excess of "muck" that needs spreading but under EU rules, can't be spread.