The Labour Government

BobKowalski said:
You mean the equipment is leased. How do they afford the monthly payments? What with them being so poor and all that. And does the lease allow for damages while *checks notes* driving through police barricades?

It all has a bit of a ‘Landed Gentry Go On a Jolly Protest’ vibe with Lord Farquaad leading the way.
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Because farm equipment is included in their costs. Per acre revenue - per acre costs (seed, machinery, labour) = profit. For smaller farms they’ll either “borrow” or ask another farmer to plant out / harvest. I’m not sure at this stage if you’re being facetious or you’re a bit thick.
 
When it comes to farming I doubt there's any other industry where the business owners are able to blur the lines so much between the commercial business and domestic life, and in all aspects not just the financial side, even the more subjective issue of work-life balance.

All I know is despite living and working around farming all my life and putting up with the never ending whining and moaning and pleading poverty that I've heard from all farmers... I've never seen a farmer leave the industry altogether and go out and get a regular 9-5 PAYE job.

I have seen plenty of evidence that farmers do just fine financially despite declaring they have such supposedly low incomes and poor profit margins and they're far from working their fingers to the bone 24/7 outside of the busy periods of the typical farming year.
 
jacko74 said:
When it comes to farming I doubt there's any other industry where the business owners are able to blur the lines so much between the commercial business and domestic life, and in all aspects not just the financial side, even the more subjective issue of work-life balance.

All I know is despite living and working around farming all my life and putting up with the never ending whining and moaning and pleading poverty that I've heard from all farmers... I've never seen a farmer leave the industry altogether and go out and get a regular 9-5 PAYE job.

I have seen plenty of evidence that farmers do just fine financially despite declaring they have such supposedly low incomes and poor profit margins and they're far from working their fingers to the bone 24/7 outside of the busy periods of the typical farming year.
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The average farm makes £40,000 profit per year so the value of land is probably the only vehicle they have to sustain the business (by borrowing money against it). Without this, no farmer can afford to farm. If you need £100k of equipment and supplies then you're going to struggle to borrow on profit alone. Those profits have also struggled massively due to cost rises over the last 5 years.

I actually disagree with these assessments of land values because most farmland is only worth its value as a farm. If a farm only makes £40,000 per year and the land costs say £1m then that isn't a viable business that anybody would buy. Farmers are the only potential purchasers because a farmer sees a farm as more than just a business which is why they indeed don't just quit to work 9-5.

Either way I think the logic is pretty simple. Would everybody like to pay more for their food? No. So do we need farmers to succeed and lower their costs? Yes. Is the government making it easier? No.

I'd understand if this raised £50bn but it won't, it'll raise around £500m maximum, city will pay more for 5 players. The return to the treasury is meaningless so it's nothing more than an ideological tax. It'll raise even less in the end because most affected farmers will take advice and give up their ownership and put their land into discretionary trusts in which case IHT doesn't even apply.
 
inbetween said:
I actually disagree with these assessments of land values because most farmland is only worth its value as a farm.
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Soz mate but this is untrue and why the tax is being brought in. For some years farmland has been worth what somebody will pay for it if they are looking for a tax dodge its returns as a farm is less relevant as how much the value of that land will increase as other speculators look for land to invest in.
 
my daughter is about to get an IHT bill.
She's not a farmer but works part time as a special needs teacher. No savings but 'owns' a house that's worth about 20k more than her mortgage.
If she has to pay the tax, why should a farmers kids be exempt?
 
metalblue said:
Governments own figures.

www.bbc.co.uk

Winter fuel cut to put 50,000 pensioners into relative poverty

Government estimates reveal the impact of cuts to the winter fuel allowance, announced earlier this year.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Some would call this cruel.
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I'm not sure how "relative" poverty works in this. Part of the government's argument is that withdrawing the WFA(=£4 or £6/week) is in the context of an increase in the state pension over 3 years of £45/week. Those who would be put into relative poverty (not necessarily the same 50,000 each year) can't be those on Pension Credit so must be people just over the Pension Credit threshold or entitled but not claiming. Yet other benefits and average wages haven't gone up by as much as the triple-lock pensions, so against whom are these 50,000 relatively poorer? Children in poverty? Other pensioners with private pensions?
 
stonerblue said:
my daughter is about to get an IHT bill.
She's not a farmer but works part time as a special needs teacher. No savings but 'owns' a house that's worth about 20k more than her mortgage.
If she has to pay the tax, why should a farmers kids be exempt?
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I must be missing something. No-one pays IHT on a house they own, because they'd be dead.
 
jacko74 said:
Well that's strange because my local family owned corner shop employs 3 staff all working enough hours to qualify for paying NI...
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If they have 3 staff, I believe they'd have to earn £30k each, before the shop had to pay a penny of employers NI.

For a shop with 3 staff, Labour have actually reduced the tax rate, because they've doubled the employment allowance.
 
If all these tax-dodgers (e.g. Clarkson) were not buying up farm land to tax dodge, farm land for real farmers would be cheaper. Hence, fewer farms would have to pay IT, farmers could afford to buy more land, and young farmers might be able to afford to start up—just a thought.

The problem, here and in many other areas of life, is tax dodging and the distortions it causes to markets.
 
inbetween said:
The average farm makes £40,000 profit per year so the value of land is probably the only vehicle they have to sustain the business (by borrowing money against it). Without this, no farmer can afford to farm. If you need £100k of equipment and supplies then you're going to struggle to borrow on profit alone. Those profits have also struggled massively due to cost rises over the last 5 years.

I actually disagree with these assessments of land values because most farmland is only worth its value as a farm. If a farm only makes £40,000 per year and the land costs say £1m then that isn't a viable business that anybody would buy. Farmers are the only potential purchasers because a farmer sees a farm as more than just a business which is why they indeed don't just quit to work 9-5.

Either way I think the logic is pretty simple. Would everybody like to pay more for their food? No. So do we need farmers to succeed and lower their costs? Yes. Is the government making it easier? No.

I'd understand if this raised £50bn but it won't, it'll raise around £500m maximum, city will pay more for 5 players. The return to the treasury is meaningless so it's nothing more than an ideological tax. It'll raise even less in the end because most affected farmers will take advice and give up their ownership and put their land into discretionary trusts in which case IHT doesn't even apply.
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As I said, it's so easy to blur the lines when it comes to the finances of farming that quoting any figure of average profit, average income, average expenditure is utterly meaningless, even for just one individual farm never mind the sector as a whole.

I'm not opposed to farmers at all and I'd hate to see what would happen if all smaller family farms disappeared and were taken over by huge corporate entities.

I'd just have more respect for farmers if they were a bit more honest and they admitted that their way of life isn't quite as grinding and unprofitable as they constantly make it out to be.

If farming really was as financially non-viable as farmers claim it to be I'm sure every last one of them would have gone out of business a long time ago.
 
BrianW said:
If all these tax-dodgers (e.g. Clarkson) were not buying up farm land to tax dodge, farm land for real farmers would be cheaper. Hence, fewer farms would have to pay IT, farmers could afford to buy more land, and young farmers might be able to afford to start up—just a thought.

The problem, here and in many other areas of life, is tax dodging and the distortions it causes to markets.
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And the same bastards supported the Tories squeezing councils of cash and forcing them to sell off tenant farms.
 
stonerblue said:
my daughter is about to get an IHT bill.
She's not a farmer but works part time as a special needs teacher. No savings but 'owns' a house that's worth about 20k more than her mortgage.
If she has to pay the tax, why should a farmers kids be exempt?
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Im guessing here but your daughter probably doesn't rely on the inheritance she has acquired for her living, so she can sell or cash in whatever has been left to her to pay the IHT bill.

A farmer who inherits a working farm from his parents may have to sell the farm to pay to pay the IHT bill. Therefore lose his livelihood. Many farmers are asset rich cash poor.
 
BrianW said:
If all these tax-dodgers (e.g. Clarkson) were not buying up farm land to tax dodge, farm land for real farmers would be cheaper. Hence, fewer farms would have to pay IT, farmers could afford to buy more land, and young farmers might be able to afford to start up—just a thought.

The problem, here and in many other areas of life, is tax dodging and the distortions it causes to markets.
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Any farm that has produced food use there fields should be exempt. it's the likes of Dyson who owns 1000 of acres of land for tax dodge reasons should be hit hard!
 
waspish said:
Any farm that has produced food use there fields should be exempt. it's the likes of Dyson who owns 1000 of acres of land for tax dodge reasons should be hit hard!
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I'd tend to disagree because the tax dodge could continue if like Dyson you have 36k acres and let them out to tenant farmers. Those farms produce food and in the meantime provide the actual land owner with a tool to avoid tax.
 
Churchlawtonblue said:
Im guessing here but your daughter probably doesn't rely on the inheritance she has acquired for her living, so she can sell or cash in whatever has been left to her to pay the IHT bill.

A farmer who inherits a working farm from his parents may have to sell the farm to pay to pay the IHT bill. Therefore lose his livelihood. Many farmers are asset rich cash poor.
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No. A child who inherits a farm doesn't have to be working on the farm beforehand so may not necessarily 'lose their livelihood'
 
Churchlawtonblue said:
Im guessing here but your daughter probably doesn't rely on the inheritance she has acquired for her living, so she can sell or cash in whatever has been left to her to pay the IHT bill.

A farmer who inherits a working farm from his parents may have to sell the farm to pay to pay the IHT bill. Therefore lose his livelihood. Many farmers are asset rich cash poor.
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I'm not sure I agree.

For a start, it's a fairly niche case that you would have to sell an entire farm to pay an IHT bill. By the time you get into the bills being really significant, it's almost certainly because you have a lot of land, and would only need to sell a small amount to pay the IHT. I still think we're being asked to conflate two contradictory 'farmers', the ones who earn no money are almost certainly not the ones who will have huge IHT bills.

Losing their livelihood is also a bit of a red herring. If they absolutely had to sell, then they'd be potentially be losing a business they care about, but surely they'd then be a very wealthy person? If we're being asked to accept that hugely valuable farms make almost no money, then they'd be a lot better off financially selling up.

Losing a longstanding family business may be tough, but if you come out of it as a multi-millionaire, who can retire the next day, then that's a better position than most of the country are in.
 
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