Scully

No. I don’t have the facility to freeze that much meat really. I used to give it away, but the processing up at mates farm ate into my day and I didn’t want to shoot them and not use the meat, so we clad a lot of saplings and ring fenced most pheasant feeders. I was fed up with bouncing around in a draughty old Landrover at stupid o'clock also, so sold my CF. There was a time all I wanted was a CF rifle, but I don’t miss it if I’m honest. If I did get another it would be a Ruger No 1, but I digress.

Of course it’s aimed at farmers! There was a lot of confused farmers in London the other day then if it’s not aimed at them! Your post above centres around farming and its incomes and EU subsidies, so how can it not be about farming? First subsidies were introduced after the war in the late 40’s, and we weren’t in the EU then, and I believe in their current form in the early 60’s, and we weren’t in the EU then either. Nothing to do with your beloved EU. The cost of what it takes to produce affordable food has nothing to do with farmers, and everything to do with the petro-chemical industries and the supermarkets which set prices. If production costs rise then farmers have to take that on the chin; they cannot pass on the cost of their produce like other businesses because prices are fixed by outside influences, hence the subsidies. Getting rid of some farms won’t make food cheaper to produce ( when has that EVER worked?) because costs of production will continue to rise…they have never come down. Relying on importation of cheap food isn’t my idea of food security.

Reading it currently. Can’t give a review as I’m not long into it, but I enjoy his writing.

Good for him. Mine inherited a lot of debt on his parents farm but tried to work his way out of it. It didn’t work and he went bankrupt, which led to a nervous breakdown. He’s still in farming, but employed now.

You know exactly what I meant. It can’t be described as a loophole if what the farmers were doing was legal, and allowable by government policy. The policy existed for a reason, and has been changed due to a wealth envious political party. Changing that policy smacks of spite to me; allowing farmers to do what any other person in business would do, then shutting that door knowing damn fine it will render some farms unworkable, whilst claiming it won’t effect the majority of farms! I don’t care how wealthy some farmers are, I genuinely couldn’t care less. There are small trundling along farms here which have been passed down through generations, but that may come to an end following this. I know many at both ends of the scale ( my BIL was one of those at the poorer end ) and I’m fully aware of the hours of daily trudge they put in, 365 days a year, because that’s what they do, and they love it. I think they deserve every penny they get. I wouldn’t do it, nor would any of those spineless politicians who think up policy and the civil servants who make it possible. Spite, that’s all it is.

Where are you getting your info’ from? I think you’re getting confused between what is logical, and what is law, and one has very little to do with the other in the UK. For a start, .308 is more or less 7.62, and 5.56 is .22. Also it is very much everything to do with magazine capacity which differentiates a S1 shotgun from a S2, nothing else does! Also, you may be getting confused with the GL’s and exemptions for ‘avian pest species’. You cannot use a S1semi automatic shotgun to shoot game in the UK, not even if you just load two cartridges in a five shot magazine; the gun is still a S1 by definition in law.

Oh please! Taxing people retrospectively for taking advantage of a governmental instigated policy isn’t closing a ‘loophole’! How is that a ‘loophole’? 😄 It’s wealth envy typical of the worst kind of Labour policy possibly, but it’s nothing to do with closing a ‘loophole’!

Money or wealth if you prefer, accumulated through profit ( like any other good business ) which in turn is accumulated as a result of good working practice and then invested back into that business ( just like any other good business ) but then ‘removed’ as a compulsory tax.

Then why not simply close just close ‘that loophole’ ? But then the government would have nothing to gain would they? 🤔

This. 👆

If they’re taken away from you as a compulsory tax, isnt that ‘removed’?

Yes, I often wonder how some tennant farmers make enough money to eventually buy their own, and indeed not all do. I don’t know if they claim it back either! 😀 I only know one tenant farmer and she doesn’t have two pennies to rub together and I honestly wonder why shes doing it. I used to go ferreting there years ago and it’s a run down ramshackle of buildings ( one of which was condemned and signage to make people aware of that ) on poor Fell bottom sheep pasture. I don’t know how she makes ends meet but she obviously does.

I think to a certain extent most people do, myself included, but I know literally dozens of farmers and I wouldn’t swap places with any of them. The thing you have to remember about wealth envy, is that if all the money was taken away from those you’re envious about, it wouldn’t make one iota of difference to your life whatsoever, and certainly not your standard of living.

No snow this morning, not even a frost, but yesterday’s snow still on the tops.

I didnt actually quote you, but fair enough. The answer however, is, if they’re vat registered then why shouldn’t they? If I was a vat registered farmer I’d be doing the same, and so would you and ( if they’re honest ) everyone else on this forum. Farmers don’t have the monopoly on claiming for items they probably shouldn’t, which is what some people appear to be suggesting, nor are they exploiting some ‘loophole’ regarding the inheritance tax issue, which was government introduced back in the ‘80’s I think. I know dozens and dozens of self employed tradesmen and women who avoid paying tax at every opportunity, none of which has anything to do with farmers and inheritance tax. The gripes on this forum smack of having more to do with wealth envy than anything else, in my opinion. Folks are seemingly, in the majority on this forum, anti government, until it comes to bashing those who have more than they, then they’re all for it! Not surprising, but strangely weird. 🤷‍♂️