The UK Budget Oct 2024.... are farmers not fuming?

[Armagh18]

Whats the general take from farmers after they removed relief on agriculture for inheritance?

Is this not gonna force a serious number of farmers out of business over time? What is this government up to?

Inheritance tax is f**king disgraceful

You think it's disgraceful in general? Any particular reason?

It's surely one of the more 'fair' taxes and also causes less drag on the economy than the likes of income tax.

The question wasn't adressed to me, but IHT is brutal as it is taxing money / assets that are what is left after the earnings were already taxed by the government at that time.  Why can the deceased not pass along his assets to his family members without the government getting a second bite at the deceased person's earnings / wealth?

Daylight robbery. Agreed. Especially for farmers, theres very few of them would have the cash on hand to pay a big inheritance tax bill, even if the land/farm may be worth millions it probably isn't that profitable.

[imtommygunn]

While I agree I think it is a pretty high bar before you get hit with inheritance tax. Even this farming one here there is some speculation that you'd be up around 2 million of land before you'd get hit.

[thewobbler]

I'm undecided about inheritance tax.

On the one hand, I'd be intrinsically in favour of any measures that might dissuade the "normal rich" from gathering up land and houses that could instead make "normal folk" happy at a price point lower than is currently paid.

But on the other hand, rural environments work better when left in the hands of rural folk. And if they're squeezed out, the inevitable outcome of this is that super rich people and organisations will become the landowners. And slowly but surely we enter medieval times again.

[RedHand88]

Welcome to a Labour government. Never should have got rid of the Conservatives.

[Kidder81]

I assume it's hard to get a budget where everyone is happy

[screenexile]

Welcome to a Labour government. Never should have got rid of the Conservatives.

Yeah they were all great lads... Boris as PM and Truss as Chancellor would do the trick and get us back on the right track!

[Banks of the Bann]

https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/labour-has-no-intention-of-changing-apr-says-shadow-defra-secretary/

Whether you've any sympathy for farmers or not, Labour said they wouldn't touch it and they lied. Absolutely shameless.

Mind you after taking winter fuel payments off pensioners nothing would surprise me.

Means testing pensioners for winter fuel payments should always have happened, how they've did it could do with a bit of work as there are poor enough pensioners out there who either aren't eligible for benefits or don't know how to claim them.

There are lots of wealthy pensioners out there who don't need it.

I think they've targeted a lot of the right people in this budget although you wouldn't know that as the MSM is in the control of the exceedingly rich who don't want to pay full wack for wee Jonny and Jenny to go to public school or pay more capital gains tax or more tax on their private jets...

The National insurance one I don't know how that will pan out as businesses will want to pass that cost back onto their employees or customers, however they should have done more on the bonuses and wages of these CEO's and extortionate revenues some companies have been making on the back of "the war in Ukraine" and Covid.

You only get winter fuel allowance if you claim pension credit. Which you get if you get less than £11,400 per week.

The UK 'living wage' as an annual salary would be about £24k.

It's not just wealthy pensioners that are losing out. Labour are taking the piss.

p.s. any specific reason why "the war in Ukraine" is in quotation marks? Is there not a war in Ukraine?

Year I presume.

I also point to the fact that the way they're doing it isn't the best, but they definitely should be means testing this payment.

The war in Ukraine was the reason given for the huge hike in fuel costs which were passed onto the end customers however what isn't being mentioned was the historically high profits the fuel companies were making on the back of this excuse.
This was one of the main drivers of inflation and not the war in Ukraine which was purely the excuse they needed.

This is still happening by the way and the Labour Gov should have come down hard on it, but chose not to.

Yes, I meant per annum, not per week.

Means test if you must but for Labour to say someone scraping by on the measly UK pension of £11.4k doesn't need it is ridiculous.

Half what is recognised as a living wage.

[TabClear]

https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/labour-has-no-intention-of-changing-apr-says-shadow-defra-secretary/

Whether you've any sympathy for farmers or not, Labour said they wouldn't touch it and they lied. Absolutely shameless.

Mind you after taking winter fuel payments off pensioners nothing would surprise me.

Means testing pensioners for winter fuel payments should always have happened, how they've did it could do with a bit of work as there are poor enough pensioners out there who either aren't eligible for benefits or don't know how to claim them.

There are lots of wealthy pensioners out there who don't need it.

I think they've targeted a lot of the right people in this budget although you wouldn't know that as the MSM is in the control of the exceedingly rich who don't want to pay full wack for wee Jonny and Jenny to go to public school or pay more capital gains tax or more tax on their private jets...

The National insurance one I don't know how that will pan out as businesses will want to pass that cost back onto their employees or customers, however they should have done more on the bonuses and wages of these CEO's and extortionate revenues some companies have been making on the back of "the war in Ukraine" and Covid.

You only get winter fuel allowance if you claim pension credit. Which you get if you get less than £11,400 per week.

The UK 'living wage' as an annual salary would be about £24k.

It's not just wealthy pensioners that are losing out. Labour are taking the piss.

p.s. any specific reason why "the war in Ukraine" is in quotation marks? Is there not a war in Ukraine?

Year I presume.

I also point to the fact that the way they're doing it isn't the best, but they definitely should be means testing this payment.

The war in Ukraine was the reason given for the huge hike in fuel costs which were passed onto the end customers however what isn't being mentioned was the historically high profits the fuel companies were making on the back of this excuse.
This was one of the main drivers of inflation and not the war in Ukraine which was purely the excuse they needed.

This is still happening by the way and the Labour Gov should have come down hard on it, but chose not to.

Yes, I meant per annum, not per week.

Means test if you must but for Labour to say someone scraping by on the measly UK pension of £11.4k doesn't need it is ridiculous.

Half what is recognised as a living wage.

Historically the assumption was that most people did not have housing costs in retirement as their homes were paid off. Unfortunately that is increasingly not the case and is only going to get worse.

I know in my place there are a good few colleagues, who i would class as switched on generally, who seem to have a complete blindspot to pension requirements. Will just auto enrol for the minimum amount and have no sense as to what that actually means in a few years. Was talking to one guy who was pleased  that he thought he would have  a £200k pension pot at retirement in about 15 years. Had no idea that would get him less than £1k a month if he was to buy an annuity

[Sportacus]

The 'big farmer' has ended up in a hole. Egged on by agricultural colleges, Going for Growth strategy etc, and sometimes their own greed, they've spent fortunes building large scale farms, and now they're under the pump because of the state of Lough Neagh, and now the inheritance tax swipe.  A lot of those big farms are easily worth 3 or 4 million. If the farmer gets hit by a bus, the family now get hit with an eye watering tax bill. Sleepless nights for some of them.

[tbrick18]

Not ideal but if you were fortunate enough to inherit a farm with a value of +£1m cand you were struggling to square up HMRC could you just not sell what you need to cover the tax bill?  Is there a timeframe that inheritance tax must be paid within post inheritance?

Probably not that simple. Selling land would also be subject to capital gains I imagine. think of a 3rd generation farm, orignally it could have been a couple of thousand an acre in value, now worth 12K and acre. So capital gains due on the profit, meaning to foot the inheritance tax bill the entire farm may need to be sold.

I think it's scandalous.
Farm assets would quickly hit the 1M mark - especially when you take in the family home sitting on the farm.
I'd suggest the majority of small farms in NI would be affected by this.

[Armagh18]

Not ideal but if you were fortunate enough to inherit a farm with a value of +£1m cand you were struggling to square up HMRC could you just not sell what you need to cover the tax bill?  Is there a timeframe that inheritance tax must be paid within post inheritance?

Probably not that simple. Selling land would also be subject to capital gains I imagine. think of a 3rd generation farm, orignally it could have been a couple of thousand an acre in value, now worth 12K and acre. So capital gains due on the profit, meaning to foot the inheritance tax bill the entire farm may need to be sold.

I think it's scandalous.
Farm assets would quickly hit the 1M mark - especially when you take in the family home sitting on the farm.
I'd suggest the majority of small farms in NI would be affected by this.

Yeah 1m really isn't that much in terms of land/farm property.

We are being absolutely shafted.

[Milltown Row2]

Ones weeping about not getting a million for their farms and others can't afford to heat their house..

I deal with farmers every day, they could buy and sell ya. No flies on them

[RedHand88]

Not ideal but if you were fortunate enough to inherit a farm with a value of +£1m cand you were struggling to square up HMRC could you just not sell what you need to cover the tax bill?  Is there a timeframe that inheritance tax must be paid within post inheritance?

Probably not that simple. Selling land would also be subject to capital gains I imagine. think of a 3rd generation farm, orignally it could have been a couple of thousand an acre in value, now worth 12K and acre. So capital gains due on the profit, meaning to foot the inheritance tax bill the entire farm may need to be sold.

I think it's scandalous.
Farm assets would quickly hit the 1M mark - especially when you take in the family home sitting on the farm.
I'd suggest the majority of small farms in NI would be affected by this.

Yeah 1m really isn't that much in terms of land/farm property.

We are being absolutely shafted.

I was wondering what % of farms fall into this bracket. Can anyone shed light? Not a farmer myself.
Hillary Benn says it'll only affect 500 farms next year but then assuming it's 500 every year (maybe more depending on the value of land inflating), the numbers could really rack up.

[Sportacus]

Not ideal but if you were fortunate enough to inherit a farm with a value of +£1m cand you were struggling to square up HMRC could you just not sell what you need to cover the tax bill?  Is there a timeframe that inheritance tax must be paid within post inheritance?

Probably not that simple. Selling land would also be subject to capital gains I imagine. think of a 3rd generation farm, orignally it could have been a couple of thousand an acre in value, now worth 12K and acre. So capital gains due on the profit, meaning to foot the inheritance tax bill the entire farm may need to be sold.

I think it's scandalous.
Farm assets would quickly hit the 1M mark - especially when you take in the family home sitting on the farm.
I'd suggest the majority of small farms in NI would be affected by this.

Yeah 1m really isn't that much in terms of land/farm property.

We are being absolutely shafted.

I was wondering what % of farms fall into this bracket. Can anyone shed light? Not a farmer myself.
Hillary Benn says it'll only affect 500 farms next year but then assuming it's 500 every year (maybe more depending on the value of land inflating), the numbers could really rack up.

I wouldn't heed a word from Hilary Benn. I thought he might be ok, but he's as political as the rest of them.

[marty34]

Is this when the farmer dies?

Can he, when alive, not just write a will? Or does this involve a tax, regardless of who and when the will is made?