REVEALED: Just 2,500 farms own a QUARTER of the farmland in England
Startling new stats I obtained from DEFRA & shared with @mirror.co.uk show how unequal land ownership is in this country
Large landowners must pay their fair share of tax
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/quarter-englands-farmland-owned-just-34226017
Startling new stats I obtained from DEFRA & shared with @mirror.co.uk show how unequal land ownership is in this country
Large landowners must pay their fair share of tax
🧵 1/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/quarter-englands-farmland-owned-just-34226017
Comments
there is an indirect deleterious effect on Tenant farmers whose landlords r often large Estates who when planning future IHT may consider selling off or taking back tenanted land
Tenant farmers r at the❤️of our rural economy managing a 1/3 of all farmland https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2024/01/08/supporting-tenant-farmers-in-england/
"The threshold is too low, which will affect a lot of people & it should be gradual so 5%, say, for up to a farm value of £5m, then 10% until £10m, and so on, to a maximum inheritance tax rate of 50% for farms worth over £50m. That would have been fairer.” https://t.co/Hg8FItkG0Q
had some excellent advice & info on how the threshold 4 IHT cld be raised >£2m, be better prepared4 & the use of life insurance as a way 2protect against any possible %tax claim but policy needs adapting esp 2protect Tenant farmers
https://t.co/sqX11IP5pY
many on marginal land or fell
the danger of larger farms/estates being highly taxed is the threat 2 Tenants
49% of farmers fear going out of business
They need support especially small tenant farmers
Farms haven't always been exempt or even treated differently. The exemption at the end of the last century created the tax 'avoidance' and inflated land prices.
Golf balls are inedible as are ££
Tax the larger tax-loophole "farms"
Marginal land for marginal earnings has a marginal value unless it's used to avoid IHT.
not if it absorbs and holds back water preventing flooding as improved fell land can do
certainly not useless if it is our largest carbon storage as peat pasture and forest as so much of our marginal land provides
#Farming #IHT
@andywightman.bsky.social
https://whoownsscotland.org.uk/
Andy Wightman, of Who Owns Scotland, is here @andy-wightman.bsky.social
Each year DEFRA publishes the June Agricultural Survey providing stats on the number & size of farms in England
I asked them to release data on how many farms are above 500 hectares (c1,200 acres) & how much land they control - 26% of England's farmland
As a species we have a duty to look after each other & for the soils & water we depend on & the creatures plants & life we live along with
The earth endures with or without us