Good breakdown of the actual impact of the inheritance tax changes on farms.
The £1m is ON TOP of standard exemptions. So it's £1.3m tax-free if includes a residence. £2.6m if the spouse inherits. £3m if kids get some too.
And the tax is on surplus, not the total.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2o
The £1m is ON TOP of standard exemptions. So it's £1.3m tax-free if includes a residence. £2.6m if the spouse inherits. £3m if kids get some too.
And the tax is on surplus, not the total.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2o
Comments
Though the worst take so far has to be: "Let's do to farmers what Thatcher did to miners!"
I've no idea how much your house is worth, but you can't just sell it and quit your job can you? It doesn't work like that.
Ignoring the hysteria, around 100 farms a year will be faced with a tax bill they probably can't afford.
If the goal is to get Dyson's money, this is a pretty poor way of doing it with a bag of unintended consequences thrown in for free.
It depends on who inherits, whether they use the 7 year rule to hand it over, and even after all that it's a marginal tax, not a tax on total.
Which are WAY more legit than the inheritance tax issue.
So I still hold that making the narrative about the inheritance tax is a massive mistake. Because it detracts not helps.
https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/news/budget-2024-whats-the-future-for-farmers/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8rl4pl3n75t?post=asset%3A6b1b0817-984c-48e6-a75d-d8bcb98d6517#post
(However if the children live abroad, they may also pay tax there)
Also I expect that the industry behind selling & managing this type of asset is encouraging/supporting the protests?
The Clarksons and Dysons pushed prices up by 4x in some places I believe.
1) They were handing that land to people who aren't spouses/kids
2) Every farmer with more than £1m in farming land died at once.
Reality is there are only 117 farms with value above £2.5m.
Whole debate needs more nuance. And I don't think big fake numbers being thrown about helps with that.
I'd have thought that Leasing was the preferred solution.
or
HP/Finance which would be 'written down' when calculating estate value?
I've just yet to see anyone put out a number that suggests they will be. There seems to be a lot of sleight-of-hand suggestion it's a tax on total, not marginal.
But it's not about to drop £200,000 charges on small farmers.
It's about people like James Dyson who have spotted farmland banking is a handy way to dodge some inheritance tax.
We really need to stop mythologising wealthy landowners as salt of the earth.
(Just saying.)
3:O)>
3:O)>
We might be better focused on all the other straw sat on top of them. And there's likely more sympathy for that.
GMB this morning featured Rebecca Wilson, a pretty young girl saying they couldn't afford inheritance tax on her £10m farm. She went to a £30k a year school. 🤷
Indeed I note that valiant Jeremy Clarkson is protesting today and accusing the government of trying to:
"ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers"
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/jeremy-clarkson-farmers-protest-westminster-keir-starmer-inheritance-tax-b1194579.html
Next thing we'll have is 'Starmer's genocide of farmers is unacceptable'.
“I’m becoming more and more convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan."
“They want to carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero wind farms."
I mean, I live in Somerset and some of the family trees around here are essentially circular, so maybe it's not totally far fetched...
"Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The Government doesn't get any of my money when I die. And the price of the food that I grow can only go up."
https://www.womanandhome.com/life/news-entertainment/jeremy-clarkson-paid-farm-worth-now/
The current policy is potentially a brute force method. It probably needs more nuance. But the way to that is not Clarkson marching on London, or mega-farmers on Good Morning Britain.
https://bsky.app/profile/dodgyvictorians.bsky.social/post/3lbcaxwmj4c2i
How many are (effectively) in that £2.5m or more of tax free inheritance allowance bracket? And given it's a marginal tax, by how much are they over?