Calm Down
Being a regular Instagram participant, it’s been an interesting week scrolling horticultural content after the recent UK budget. Bearing in mind a large number of people involved in horticulture are either large land-owners themselves or come from families who are land-owners in the UK. The quantity of dummy-spitting has been brow-slappingly tedious.
So, basically, the Labour party is about to introduce inheritance tax on land which up until now has been a handy tax-dodge for tory voters many of whom have made a multi-generational hobby out of snaffling earth as a nice tax-free asset for their estates. For sure, much of the land is used for farming and there are proper old farming families in the UK, BUT. Come on lads! This bull about families having to sell the farm to pay the inheritance tax is ludicrous! Drama, MUCH!!?
“That’s it then! We’ll have to sell the family farm! 1000 years of Gubbins history! Our forefather’s very sweat and blood! My grandfather broke his neck building that farm wall!, we fought to keep this in the war/s! That tree?.. see that tree?.. planted by my ancestor before the war of the roses!! Who takes it from us!?.. !!!” *scene of a farmer dropping to his knees clutching his sideburns in the soft fading light of a sunset through a gingham curtained farm kitchen window.
For a start, if the old farts who refuse to sign over the farm until they literally die, grow up and RETIRE at a normal age and sign the farm over to whoever is going to farm it, then suddenly inheritance tax is avoided. Also, there was something about most farms not falling into the inheritance tax bracket which on paper is a land worth of one million but because of extra allowances is more like three million in most cases… Unless ye’ve been cooking ye’re books.. lads..?
Just listened to a thing on the radio where the man from the farmer’s union said the figures the government had on this were way off and the guy from the government said; “Well, we took the info using HMRC figures”…
UH OHHHHHH!!!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against farmers lets face it we need them! BUT, I do think they need to realise what a massive (and mental) privilege it is to OWN land, just by being born. The new inheritance tax is pretty fair, I think, as sombody with zero means/inheritance due and who would love nothing more than to have just one acre or piece of inheritance to pay tax on!
From what I can gather it is an entirely avoidable tax if you do things right. I also saw a vid by a farmer who made a good point that if you’re working in one of the most hazardous jobs in the world, you absolutely should have life insurance too which would cover any inheritance tax in most cases should you die before handing things over.
The lads should have taken a leaf out of Ireland’s book and introduced a “Green Cert”, a qualification that if you attain it, you get loads of tax breaks and relief on inherited farms as it proves you’re an “active” farmer. It still won’t really help though if you’re going to lease the land out, because then you’re a landlord… and we all know what that means..
