Thousands of British Farmers Protest Changes to Inheritance Tax
The farmers are also mad over the government changing farm subsidy schemes, such as a 40% tax on fertilizer.
Thousands of British farmers have been protesting in Westminster against changes to the inheritance tax rules.
🔥BREAKING FARMERS – The tractors break through police lines….
… because they are tractors and this is how they roll 💥 pic.twitter.com/Q0RVMSBazr
— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) November 19, 2024
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the plans included adding a 20% inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million (around $1,264,718.16).
It would start in April 2026.
People are ticked off because the Labour Party promised to support farmers.
Sky News spoke to one farmer:
“It’s unfortunate, as Labour had originally said they would support farmers,” said fourth-generation farmer Will Weaver, who is attending today’s rally.
His 500-acre cow and sheep farm in South Gloucestershire has been in his family since 1939.
“We’ve probably buried our head in the sand a little bit. I think, back of a fag-packet rough estimates, tax is going to be north of half a million [pounds].”
The government is keen to stress that farmers will get a decade to pay the bill – but that comes as little comfort to Will: “It’s more than our profit in any year that we’ve had in the last 10 years. Dad’s saying we’ll have to sell something. I don’t know if we’ll be able to raise that sort of money through a mortgage. It’s really worrying.”
Of course, the government claimed that most farms won’t have “to pay a penny,” but the National Farmers Union and other advocates insisted “the government’s figures are incorrect.”
According to tax experts, if a farming couple uses all exemptions, they “could plausibly pass on a farm worth £3 million to a child or grandchild without being affected.”
Individuals who own a farm could “pass on land and property valued up to £1.5 million tax free to a direct descendant.”
However, the government admitted it changed the rules to crack down on people using the lack of inheritance tax on farms to buy agricultural plots.
Jeremy Clarkson, best known as the host of Top Gear, has been a vocal supporter of farmers, said “that avoiding inheritance tax had been ‘critical’ in his decision to buy a farm.”
I do not blame him one bit. I would do anything to avoid paying any taxes.
But these protesters look like regular people, not millionaires.
🚨FARMERS LONDON – This doesn’t look like a small gathering of millionaire farmers to me….
This looks like the backbone of the UK taking a stand!
Pay attention Starmer, you just became Britains version of Macron 🚨 pic.twitter.com/uo11FgihiP
— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) November 19, 2024
Stats show investors have bought most of the farms and estates:
Data and analysis by estate agents backs the position that rural land is being snapped up by investors. In 2023, non-farmers bought more than half of the farms and estates sold on the open market in England — farmers accounted for the lowest level of transactions on record. Private investors were involved in 28 per cent of transactions, institutional investors in 13 per cent — a rise of 10 per cent on 2022 levels, and lifestyle buyers represented 16 per cent.
But the farmers are also mad over the government changing farm subsidy schemes:
Last month’s budget also sped up the phase-out of EU-era subsidies as funding is switched to nature-friendly farming schemes. Research by the Liberal Democrats has estimated that farmers could have their basic payments reduced by half while they wait until 2028 for the government to introduce a new payment system — another financial blow for a cash-poor industry.
Farmer Oliver Atkinson told the public the government wants a carbon tax on fertilizer, which is obviously vital to farmers.
Andy MacNae, a Labour Member of Parliament, has concerns over the changes to the tax:
“I don’t know at the moment. I know the intent. I see the data, but I’m not an accountant. I’m not a financial specialist,” he said.
Mr MacNae was speaking after meeting with farmers in his constituency during a mass lobby event organised by the National Farmers Union in Westminster on Tuesday.
He said he wanted to “hear the real concerns of farmers” and “take those concerns back to Treasury”, and suggested the policy could need to be tweaked to protect family farms.
Steve Witherden, a Welsh Labour MP, demanded transparency from the Treasury by producing “its modelling on the impact family farms.”
🎙️How bad could this be for farmers?
'It's the end! If you actually stop and pay attention, it's the end!'
Jeremey Clarkson standing up for UK farmers at the protest in London. Fair play to him. He means business! pic.twitter.com/2MRXwCEgus
— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) November 19, 2024
What’s a “normal protest group”, Jon? People wearing loafers with no socks? 🙄 https://t.co/hI3LIeqaHR
— James Dreyfus (@DreyfusJames) November 19, 2024
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Comments
I wonder which agri-business will step in to buy the farms? Follow the money.
Starmer is kind of terrorist
Starmer isn’t the beginning of the end, but definitely the middle.
Hopefully the British public now recognize that the Labour party can’t be trusted and they will move towards the Reform party. The Tory party had a mandate after Brexit then squandered it b/c they had too many inside the party who didn’t understand the depth of public frustration or worked behind the scenes to stop Brexit. Now Labour is squandering their turn in power by betraying the working class voters that put them into office. Sooner or later the populist reformers will gain power.
Re: Now Labour is squandering their turn in power by betraying the working class voters that put them into office. Sooner or later the populist reformers will gain power.
Well, well, well. Isn’t that what just happened in the uSA?
Kinda. IMO Obama’s 1st term campaign (not his admin) was very much run as an outsider. He was gonna end forever wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. Gonna reform gov’t, make it work for average folks not elites. It had a lot of populist rhetoric similarities in the campaign (not in office) to Trump.
Obama didn’t get all that populist stuff done, far from it, he decided to get rich instead and let the DC establishment run things to benefit Wall.St/donor class interests.
In ’16 Enter Bernie Bros and Trump both riding a populist wave of occupy/tea party that still has more in common than most are willing to acknowledge. HRC/establishment d/prog screw Bernie and Trump wins in 16.
The DC establishment hamstrung as much as possible the 1st Trump admin though he should have slapped it down a bit with a VETO when border wall funding wasn’t in the budget. Covid hits, election rules waived in ’20 and somehow Biden gets more voters than Obama then 6-10 million of those voters ‘disappeared’ in ’22 midterms and in ’24. Hmm.
In ’24 Trump wins again. So not a perfect fit with the UK but yeah the populist disruptors are coming to the Executive Branch and this time loaded for bear.
It gets you more corporate farms, if the son has to sell the farm to get the money to pay the inheritance tax.
Someone farming 500 acres cannot make a very good living.
Taxation is theft, always.
But inheritance taxes are the worst,
Those politicians that voted for this should have no opportunity whatsoever to buy food. Screw them
I guess there’s not much room there, but they should have held their protest around Smithfield Market — where the memorials to Wat Tyler and William Wallace are located.
Could British farmers transfer their farms to trusts and then pass control of the farm trust to their heir as a way to avoid tax?
Assuming their laws are that much like ours, almost certainly so… but the trust shields you for one generation, maybe two if you’re really clever… and ultimately it hits the fan anyway. If all you need is to buy time until your country gets fixed, it’s possibly a win… but I don’t think that’s enough time,
No mention of Jeremy Clarkson’s show “Clarkson’s Farm”? Clarkson bought a farm years ago, but always had a hired man farm it for him. When that man retired, Clarkson decided to give it a go himself, and to chronicle the endeavor.
Not only is the show a hoot (as is Clarkson’s sidekick Kaleb, aka “the fetus”), it’s remarkable for how it shows government interference in every facet of farming and land management. Quite eye-opening and well worth watching. Entertaining and informative. Really gives the viewer an appreciation for farmers (which may have been Clarkson’s actual purpose in making the series, given his political leanings – a sort of stealth education in the excesses of government).
Higher taxes, someone has to pay for the free stuff.
That cop blowing his pathetic little whistle trying to stop the tractor is indicative of what’s going on in England right now. .Too long have the people been cowed by the government and they’re not going to take it any longer.
The Brits need to remove their government. Out the doors, windows and off the roof..
Inheritance taxes are wrong on so many levels.
A parent works their entire life, pays their taxes on the property and wants to leave it to their children in order for the children to benefit from the parent’s hard work.
The government then comes in and says, “that hard work and property that we taxed and you paid? Welp, your descendants are going to pay more taxes to be able to benefit from your work and dreams.”
That’s reprehensible.
The easy solution is that if the person receiving the property continues to work it as intended, there is no tax. The moment they sell the property, it is seen as income and go from there.
Make no mistake, this is not about the welfare of the people or anything. This is a money grab by the government. It always has been.
Politicians always talk about trying to develop businesses and invest in the middle class, and then tax those inherited businesses and middle class into oblivion.
This seems so parallel to the Enclosure Movement in England from the mid-1700s to the mid 1800s. Farmers were forced to comply, the costs bankrupted them, and many farms were snatched up by either wealthier farmers, landholders, or other elites who had the connections to the ruling class. Some might say that enclosure was needed to modernize farming and increase production.–but the reality is the way it was constructed benefitted the elites at the expense of the working class.
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