The Labour Government

[metalblue]

What a load of nonsense. I'm surprised at that from you. That's absolutely nothing to do with the argument I was making.

If the "rich (non farmers)" find another vehicle, then that's good for people who want to farm, as it stops driving up the price of farmland, and taking it out of the hands of the people who want to farm. The likes of Kaleb Cooper might even be able to buy farmland, rather than being hired hands for people who just wanted to avoid tax.

But there are clearly other issues in the farming industry that create a situation where farms are so valuable, yet make so little money. As I said, if you had £1b to improve farming in this country, would cutting IHT for the wealthier farmers be your first idea?

I re-read your post and you’re correct, apologies, I misread the point you were making. Let me try again but there is probably no single answer.

Farmer produce margins are tight due to limited markets - supermarkets for example will use their dominant market position to pay as little as possible - there is a natural ceiling to what will be paid domestically when you can import produce. But farmers aren’t really going to be concerned with their earnings versus land value - they only care about profit per acre and that has nothing to do with the value of the land.

Land value has certainly increased above inflation over the past 3 decades (not as much as house prices) so there is a case to be made that non farmers are distorting the value but “penalising” actual farmers isn’t really the solution either. The main problem as I see it, isn’t the IHT in principle, but that farms don’t earn huge sums so it limits them being able to mortgage to pay the IHT bill.

 

[jacko74]

If you can come up with a way of making these global companies pay their tax due in each of the countries they do business in, there will be around 200 countries waiting to implement your rules.

I'm not necessarily saying there is a viable way, it's the left who insist all our economic woes are solely due to huge corporate entities not paying their share of tax and they refuse to accept that there are various other reasons for the country being such an economic basket case.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

What a load of nonsense. I'm surprised at that from you. That's absolutely nothing to do with the argument I was making.

If the "rich (non farmers)" find another vehicle, then that's good for people who want to farm, as it stops driving up the price of farmland, and taking it out of the hands of the people who want to farm. The likes of Kaleb Cooper might even be able to buy farmland, rather than being hired hands for people who just wanted to avoid tax.

But there are clearly other issues in the farming industry that create a situation where farms are so valuable, yet make so little money. As I said, if you had £1b to improve farming in this country, would cutting IHT for the wealthier farmers be your first idea?

Indeed. You've got to wonder why so many wealthy people are keen to buy land that is so unproductive in terms of turning a profit. And I suspect the answer is for the same reason that so many wealthy people are happy to buy luxury flats in central London and leave them empty. Because it's offers a store of wealth. Like seemingly every other form of property, farms are yet another where the price bears little relation to the actual value of the land for any sort of productive economic activity (which is why so many of our high streets are in a dire state at the moment, too).

The lack of inheritance is demonstrably an incentive for people who aren't farmers to buy up farm land. Which doesn't mean that such a policy won't harm genuine farmers. I don't really know what the justifications for exemptions from inheritance tax for farms were in the first place. But let's be honest, there aren't many people arguing against inheritance tax on farmland who aren't against inheritance tax in general, so I don't know how much stock I can put in those arguments. I suspect Jeremy Clarkson isn't against inheritance tax because of the effect it will have on farming, he's most likely against inheritance tax on anything at all times.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Zero sympathy.

If Lloyd Webber, Clarkson and Farage are against it, then whatever the fuck it is, I'm for it.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

I see the ‘protect the wealthy from the horrors of paying tax’ crowd are in full cry today. Poor old Jeremy, though. I feel his suffering.

This is going to be a fun thread :)

Is that Jeremy the one that bought a 1000 acres for £4.5 mil so that he didn’t have to pay any tax to the government, which was a big thing for him and his family, then when the actual farmer retired, built a mansion on the property, which is now worth approx £13 mil?

I do wonder why these people are complaining?

 

[MillionMilesAway]

Is that Jeremy the one that bought a 1000 acres for £4.5 mil so that he didn’t have to pay any tax to the government, which was a big thing for him and his family, then when the actual farmer retired, built a mansion on the property, which is now worth approx £13 mil?

I do wonder why these people are complaining?

To be fair, he did say that he didn't think he could be angry on behalf of others, but that he could support them.

He's not complaining for himself - the interview he gave included him saying that he could put everything in a trust as long as he lived for 7 years.

I didn't really understand his point that it was time-consuming to do so, and why should all the other farmers have to do the same thing; that seemed to be him stating there was a workaround available to anyone.

 

[stonerblue]

Well that's strange because my local family owned corner shop employs 3 staff all working enough hours to qualify for paying NI...

Tesco express ?

 

[BobKowalski]

I re-read your post and you’re correct, apologies, I misread the point you were making. Let me try again but there is probably no single answer.

Farmer produce margins are tight due to limited markets - supermarkets for example will use their dominant market position to pay as little as possible - there is a natural ceiling to what will be paid domestically when you can import produce. But farmers aren’t really going to be concerned with their earnings versus land value - they only care about profit per acre and that has nothing to do with the value of the land.

Land value has certainly increased above inflation over the past 3 decades (not as much as house prices) so there is a case to be made that non farmers are distorting the value but “penalising” actual farmers isn’t really the solution either. The main problem as I see it, isn’t the IHT in principle, but that farms don’t earn huge sums so it limits them being able to mortgage to pay the IHT bill.

Pleased we have finally established that the issue is not the IHT but the potential threshold. Proposed threshold is £1m and the IHT rate is 20% above that figure (note threshold could be as high as £3m for a couple taking into account other allowances).

The average farm is worth around £2m (below the potential £3m threshold). Most farms are worth less than that. So, here’s the deal. Raise the threshold to £1.5m and increase the payment window to 15 years from 10 years.

That way we can fuck wealthy cunts and leave poor old Farmer Ted alone, or at worst with a reduced bill.

Sounds like a winner to me.

 

[BobKowalski]

To be fair, he did say that he didn't think he could be angry on behalf of others, but that he could support them.

He's not complaining for himself - the interview he gave included him saying that he could put everything in a trust as long as he lived for 7 years.

I didn't really understand his point that it was time-consuming to do so, and why should all the other farmers have to do the same thing; that seemed to be him stating there was a workaround available to anyone.

If there is a work around for Jeremy, there is a work around for everyone. Or he really is complaining for himself and the rest is bollocks :)

 

[Kompany Car]

If its about continuing family traditions of farming its relatively easy to avoid IHT for the farmers by putting the farm and all its assets into a trust. As long as the owner survives 7 yrs it would be outside IHT. You can set up trusts that pay named people an income which is then taxed.

If you really want to go after where the money is then trust funds would be a much better target.