The Labour Government

[BobKowalski]

They’re swallowing the government line that “those with the broadest shoulders etc etc” without even trying to engage their brains. Symptomatic of where we are I’m afraid.

Yes. Wealthy landowners like Dyson and co have such teeny, tiny shoulders. Poor lambs.

 

[Ohrodneyrodney]

Yes. Wealthy landowners like Dyson and co have such teeny, tiny shoulders. Poor lambs.

Sort of proves my point.

 

[bluenova]

They’re swallowing the government line that “those with the broadest shoulders etc etc” without even trying to engage their brains. Symptomatic of where we are I’m afraid.

I've yet to see any brain engaged response, explaining why the Government is wrong about it only affecting a small percentage of the better off farmers.

For many cases it won't affect a farm/house worth less than £3m. If it's £3.5m, then aren't you looking at £10k a year inheritance tax paid over a decade? Surely, once we get into farms worth a few millions more than the inheritance tax thresholds, we're not talking about a small family farm?

It's also only going to affect farmers who don't pass on the farming business well before they die. While farmers do retire late, I don't believe there are huge numbers of £3m+ farming businesses that are being passed on from people dying 80+ year olds to their 60 year old kids, without any thought for the potential costs. If you know you're going to do that, surely it's pretty easy to work out a way that doesn't get close to troubling inheritance tax.

Are we not looking at something that is mostly hitting those with the broadest shoulders?

 

[BobKowalski]

Sort of proves my point.

Man the barricades! Protect the rich! Exempt wealthy landowners from inheritance tax! Encourage land speculation at the expense of the honest farmers!

You should get T-shirts printed with these handy slogans and wear them with pride.

 

[Ohrodneyrodney]

Man the barricades! Protect the rich! Exempt wealthy landowners from inheritance tax! Encourage land speculation at the expense of the honest farmers!

You should get T-shirts printed with these handy slogans and wear them with pride.

Again, a perfect example

 

[blueinsa]

Yes. Wealthy landowners like Dyson and co have such teeny, tiny shoulders. Poor lambs.

Let’s see if Starmer has the balls to go after the real money shall we?

Amazon, Google, Apple etc

I think we know the answer though and the outcome for him if he even tried it so in the meantime, it’s low hanging fruit time to keep the natives happy I see.

 

[Ohrodneyrodney]

I've yet to see any brain engaged response, explaining why the Government is wrong about it only affecting a small percentage of the better off farmers.

For many cases it won't affect a farm/house worth less than £3m. If it's £3.5m, then aren't you looking at £10k a year inheritance tax paid over a decade? Surely, once we get into farms worth a few millions more than the inheritance tax thresholds, we're not talking about a small family farm?

It's also only going to affect farmers who don't pass on the farming business well before they die. While farmers do retire late, I don't believe there are huge numbers of £3m+ farming businesses that are being passed on from people dying 80+ year olds to their 60 year old kids, without any thought for the potential costs. If you know you're going to do that, surely it's pretty easy to work out a way that doesn't get close to troubling inheritance tax.

Are we not looking at something that is mostly hitting those with the broadest shoulders?

Depends what “broadest shoulders” means. If it’s asset values yes, if it’s income generation then no. For any expenditure whether it’s capital equipment or tax payments you need income. Asset values do
not help you to cover expenditure. House equity does not help you to pay your bills, unless you borrow against it but then you need the income to pay back your borrowing.
Add up the land, house values, capital equipment of any farm and loads are caught up in this, with absolutely no chance of the tax being paid.
The govt will have no choice but to change this.

 

[Brewster's millions]

Which is their right and one they are currently exercising - as well as blocking emergency vehicles which is (apparently) a shocking and heinous crime.

Funny how the blocking the ambulances argument gets a lot of mentions on here today, but not when the pro-Hamas rabble have been out polluting the streets every weekend for the past year.

 

[metalblue]

I may be missing something here. If these figures are "after all costs, salaries etc", is it not rather important to know what the farmer is paying in salaries (including to family members) and whether costs include (e.g.) a new Land Rover?

Agreed but the government don’t really explain it. Which is why I think the other report is more useful. It shows what land is producing revenue wise as that governs what they can afford if they needed to mortgage to pay IHT. Obviously they also need to live out of that money as well.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

The one part of IHT that I have always disagreed with is that in terms of property the rules are applied to unrealised value. If somebody inherits a farm worth a lot of money and decides to keep it to work it then how will they pay the tax bill?

The same applies to everything. If I inherit a £1m house and decide to live in it, rent it out or whatever then where do I find £270,000 for the tax?

In reality this forces the heir to sell and realise its value but then somebody has to buy it in return. It's actually very difficult to sell farmland of high enough value for the tax to apply. The only people who could realistically afford it are the rich and the government has just introduced a reason for the rich not to buy it.

This will probably just devalue larger farms and in the end it will reduce the amount of IHT that the government receives. They've already said that it'll only raise upto £500m which is nothing, I think it will be much less.

If you inherit a million pound house and pay tax on it, it is not the same as your parents passing on a family business, that is heavily asset rich and cash poor. The difference being that to pay the tax you have to sell the assets and put yourself out of business in doing so. The situations are clearly not the same, which I think you understand ?

 

[hcblue95]

We’ve just followed USA down the “everything my side does is good, anything your lot does is bad” route.
The details of the actual policies don’t matter any more.

You've sort of proved your own point on this one.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

There’s never likely to be an agreement on percentage. Everyone wants something slightly different.

It does need sorting as it’s a massive black hole in public finances.

The issue I think nearly everyone agrees on is that the big business's should pay at least the same proportion of tax as the small ones. Unfortunately the big business have the influence and the smaller ones don't. It hasn't seemingly changed under this government.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

The issue I think everyone agrees on is that the big business's should pay at least the same proportion of tax as the small ones. Unfortunately the big business have the influence and the smaller ones don't. It hasn't seemingly changed under this government.

It’ll take more than one country to change how influential these companies are, whatever hue of rose they wear.

 

[Ohrodneyrodney]

You've sort of proved your own point on this one.

Exactly the opposite

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

I think the phrase "rich farmers" comes up a lot, because that's who is really driving this debate, and who is really going to be affected.

I've heard from Clarkson, Dyson, and Lloyd-Webber telling me that it's the small family farmers they care about, but not much from the farmers with the farms worth £2m or less, which surely is the majority?

Is it? Seems like large numbers of farmers are against these proposals. Huge numbers of farmers aren’t wealthy at all and make little to no profit.

Of course your going to hear more from celebrities then ordinary/ normal farmers. That’s the media for you.

There probably should be some kind of tax on wealthy land owners, but this proposal doesn’t seem popular at all

 

[hcblue95]

Exactly the opposite

How so?

 

[BobKowalski]

Is it? Seems like the vast majority of farmers are against these proposals. Huge numbers of farmers aren’t wealthy at all and make little to no profit…

…There probably should be some kind of tax on wealthy land owners, but this proposal doesn’t seem popular at all

Er, yes. It’s called IHT. It’s what they are all bitching about.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

It’ll take more than one country to change how influential these companies are, whatever hue of rose they wear.

It doesn't need to be though, there are options to change the tax regime . For example the UK VAT rules could be changed easily to ensure that the tax is paid in the country where the sale takes place. Instead of using electronic trickery to pretend the electronic transaction took place in Luxembourg where the VAT rate is less.

 

[Ohrodneyrodney]

How so?

Work it out mate, it’s not complicated

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

It doesn't need to be though, there are options to change the tax regime . For example the UK VAT rules could be changed easily to ensure that the tax is paid in the country where the sale takes place. Instead of using electronic trickery to pretend the electeonic transaction took place in Luxembourg where the VAT rate is less.

Would be 100% behind that.