Following on from the Budget, why shouldn't Farmers pay inheritance tax like the rest of us?

[LeadWasp]

There's a very dangerous confusion about at the moment concerning the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. I first really became aware of it's insideousness with Comrade Corbyn, this idea that having money is bad and you must give more and more to the state. Tax evasion breaks the law. Tax avoidance is lawful and most sensible people practice it in some way or another. The car you choose, if your parents leave a property when they die (the law allows you to avoid paying tax below a certain amount), duty free is a big one etc. It's just a question of by how much.   If it's now becoming thought of as a crime to some (when we all do it) then how much of a crime is acceptable...a little one or a Clarkson sized one? We need to be careful of being hypocrites. Tax avoidance is simply putting your money where the government hasn't thought to get it yet.  After all it really isn't theirs is it!

So how much money is too much to have?  How much property is too much to have? Where is the line drawn? Careful because that tax bar might lower one day to cover us.

As a last point you can't really think of 'family farms' like other businesses.  Using a factory analogy you can't continue to make cars if you're forced to sell of a chunk of the production line to pay tax.  Conventional businesses can cope with buy and sell and reinvestment/borrowing to cover a tax cost. Family groups on low profit margins will struggled to pay that tax without selling something - and the farm becomes less viable or just has to go.  New individual farmers will struggle to buy into that land as new owners so large investors will step in.  Then our food production and countryside goes under the cosh of big business. We will have limited food choices and no price control.

Edited Tuesday at 15:28 by LeadWasp

[oowee]

15 minutes ago, LeadWasp said:

There's a very dangerous confusion about at the moment concerning the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. I first really became aware of it's insideousness with Comrade Corbyn, this idea that having money is bad and you must give more and more to the state. Tax evasion breaks the law. Tax avoidance is lawful and most sensible people practice it in some way or another. The car you choose, if your parents leave a property when they die (the law allows you to avoid paying tax below a certain amount), duty free is a big one etc. It's just a question of by how much.   If it's now becoming thought of as a crime to some (when we all do it) then how much of a crime is acceptable...a little one or a Clarkson sized one? We need to be careful of being hypocrites. Tax avoidance is simply putting your money where the government hasn't thought to get it yet.  After all it really isn't theirs is it!

So how much money is too much to have?  How much property is too much to have? Where is the line drawn? Careful because that tax bar might lower one day to cover us.

As a last point you can't really think of 'family farms' like other businesses.  Using a factory analogy you can't continue to make cars if you're forced to sell of a chunk of the production line to pay tax.  Conventional businesses can cope with buy and sell and reinvestment/borrowing to cover a tax cost. Family groups on low profit margins will struggled to pay that tax without selling something - and the farm becomes less viable or just has to go.  New individual farmers will struggle to buy into that land as new owners so large investors will step in.  Then our food production and countryside goes under the cosh of big business. We will have limited food choices and no price control.

It is in part because people are buying land for tax avoidance purposes that the cost of land is uneconomic for farming. Close that loophole and hopefully reduce the demand and price for land. 

[Scully]

2 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

No one should ideally have to pay.  Taking money (that has already been taxed when it was earned) from families and pouring it into Gov't coffers where it is spent wastefully and extravagantly is not good for anyone.

Bankrupting family farms isn't good either.

This. 👆

[Scully]

2 hours ago, oowee said:

It is in part because people are buying land for tax avoidance purposes that the cost of land is uneconomic for farming. Close that loophole and hopefully reduce the demand and price for land. 

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

[oowee]

2 minutes ago, Scully said:

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

They just did.

[JohnfromUK]

1 minute ago, oowee said:

They just did.

Rubbish.

It wasn't a 'loophole'.  It was a deliberate measure to protect farms.  It was put there for a purpose to meet a need to protect family farms.  A need that still exists now as it did then.

They have not closed a loophole (it was never a loophole), but they have removed an important protection measure for family farms.

[oowee]

1 minute ago, JohnfromUK said:

Rubbish.

It wasn't a 'loophole'.  It was a deliberate measure to protect farms.  It was put there for a purpose to meet a need to protect family farms.  A need that still exists now as it did then.

They have not closed a loophole (it was never a loophole), but they have removed an important protection measure for family farms.

There are some farms caught up in this yes. Its only a very small number of farms and those that are should take advice. If the asset is in a company structure rather than a family structure no tax will be due. 

[Scully]

9 minutes ago, oowee said:

They just did.

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’! 

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, oowee said:

Its only a very small number of farms and those that are should take advice. If the asset is in a company structure rather than a family structure no tax will be due. 

I don't believe it is a small number - and nor do the NFU.

It is very expensive (another un-necessary expense) to have to keep taking expensive legal and financial advice because Gov't keeps changing rules.  Avoiding tax (legally avoiding, NOT evading) should not require continuous bleeding of funds into setting up complex legal measures that just loose more money from hard pressed businesses and benefit the legal and accountancy professions.

 

[oowee]

4 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

I don't believe it is a small number - and nor do the NFU.

It is very expensive (another un-necessary expense) to have to keep taking expensive legal and financial advice because Gov't keeps changing rules.  Avoiding tax (legally avoiding, NOT evading) should not require continuous bleeding of funds into setting up complex legal measures that just loose more money from hard pressed businesses and benefit the legal and accountancy professions.

 

I suggest any farm unable to keep up with legislation has to ask a question can they keep up with the business they are in. Farming is a great example of ever changing boundaries rules and markets. This Government is proposing to put more money into farming than ever. 

9 minutes ago, Scully said:

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’! 

We are always taxed retrospectively. Its still closed loophole or not 🙂 

[JohnfromUK]

9 minutes ago, oowee said:

This Government is proposing to put more money into farming than ever. 

Lets be honest shall we:

This Government is proposing to put extract more money into from farming than ever. 

Edited Tuesday at 18:17 by JohnfromUK

[oowee]

8 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Lets be honest shall we:

This Government is proposing to put extract more money into from farming than ever. 

No evidence of that. The biggest extraction of cash from farming was by those voting for Brexit removing the extensive subsidies. Labour is at least trying to redress some of this. 

Lets be honest shall we?

[amateur]

18 minutes ago, oowee said:

.....This Government is proposing to put more money into farming than ever. ..

What on earth does this (or any other Labour government) know about farming, or indeed any other business.

Edited Tuesday at 18:26 by amateur

[button]

2 minutes ago, amateur said:

What on earth does this (or any other Labour government) know about farming, or indeed any other business.

Correct, they couldn't run a bath!

[JohnfromUK]

Just now, oowee said:

No evidence of that. The biggest extraction of cash from farming was by those voting for Brexit removing the extensive subsidies. Labour is at least trying to redress some of this. 

Lets be honest shall we?

You can't leave Brexit alone can you 🤣

It's how the vote went.  I didn't vote for it either, but I do accept that's how the vote went and don't keep on about it.

3 minutes ago, oowee said:

Labour is at least trying to redress some of this. 

By hugely increasing their tax burden.  That's the real truth.

The farmers and NFU say a lot will be hit.

You and Starmer say "it's only a small number"

Well IF it was a small number, it will raise very little revenue and the only reason can only be the spite and jealousy against those who have modest wealth.  That is despicable (same as the attack on private education - which is now predicted to raise almost nothing overall).

It's only even worth doing IF its going to raise significant revenue because it has certainly upset an awful lot of people - who won't be hit personally (I won't), but I really sympathise with the (and I believe it is many) who will be hit.

[oowee]

7 minutes ago, amateur said:

What on earth does this (or any other Labour government) know about farming, or indeed any other business.

😁 What does govt know about farming or indeed any other business? I guess we will see when the funding is taken up? 

[oowee]

Just now, JohnfromUK said:

You can't leave Brexit alone can you 🤣

It's how the vote went.  I didn't vote for it either, but I do accept that's how the vote went and don't keep on about it.

By hugely increasing their tax burden.  That's the real truth.

The farmers and NFU say a lot will be hit.

You and Starmer say "it's only a small number"

Well IF it was a small number, it will raise very little revenue and the only reason can only be the spite and jealousy against those who have modest wealth.  That is despicable (same as the attack on private education - which is now predicted to raise almost nothing overall).

It's only even worth doing IF its going to raise significant revenue because it has certainly upset an awful lot of people - who won't be hit personally (I won't), but I really sympathise with the (and I believe it is many) who will be hit.

I can see why you would want to forget about Brexit. The single biggest act of self harm in history hangs over all of us. Unfortunately it's all pervading across the economy. 

You are confusing farms effected which according to the government are very few, with those that invest in land to avoid IHT, of which there are apparently enough to make it worthwhile. 

Change is often difficult for some to deal with. 

[amateur]

For most of the postwar generation, we were able to improve our economic prospects, compared to our parents, thanks to the decent education provided by grammar schools (in the main now abolished by Labour), build efficient businesses free of union-imposed restrictive practices (now being reintroduced by Labour and the unions), amass a useful pension pot (Ah! Gutted by Gordon Brown) and hope to leave that to our children.

To be lectured by an ex-civil servant that our "riches" should distributed to the "poor" (probably not as poor as many of our grandparents were in the 1930s) is rich.

We had, at least, one postwar government who did allow prosperity to happen.

Regrettably we are now back to idiots being in charge.

Edited Tuesday at 18:45 by amateur
Grammar

[JohnfromUK]

3 minutes ago, oowee said:

You are confusing farms effected which according to the government are very few, with those that invest in land to avoid IHT, of which there are apparently enough to make it worthwhile. 

Change is often difficult for some to deal with. 

I'm not confusing them - I don't believe any should be taxed as I don't believe there should be any IHT.

Tax income, tax spending, but not giving.  You've earned it, paid the tax - and you should be able to give without further tax.

3 minutes ago, amateur said:

we were able to improve our economic prospects

That's our mistake.  Labour hates people being successful.

[oowee]

1 minute ago, JohnfromUK said:

I'm not confusing them - I don't believe any should be taxed as I don't believe there should be any IHT.

Tax income, tax spending, but not giving.  You've earned it, paid the tax - and you should be able to give without further tax.

Why tax the working man further when there are many recycling wealth within families of privilege. Reinvesting some of that surplus for the benefit of all is how a civilised society should work for the benefit of all. 

The world is a poor place to live if some are billionaires live next to the starving. 

[button]

2 minutes ago, oowee said:

Why tax the working man further when there are many recycling wealth within families of privilege. Reinvesting some of that surplus for the benefit of all is how a civilised society should work for the benefit of all. 

The world is a poor place to live if some are billionaires live next to the starving. 

Give us your definition of a working man, see if you can do a better job than your pal Kier, who still can’t answer it despite been pressed, the only thing we do know is his dad was a tool maker

[oowee]

Just now, button said:

Give us your definition of a working man, see if you can do a better job than your pal Kier, who still can’t answer it despite been pressed, the only thing we do know is his dad was a tool maker

Why? So that you can disagree? 

Tax produces a pot of money that is spent by Govt. The less you take from anywhere requires more to be taken from somewhere else. Rather than tell us what you don't agree with why not proffer an alternative.

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, oowee said:

families of privilege

What is wrong with privilege?

The family will no doubt 'reinvest it'

The 'State' only has the money it takes from others and it also borrows vast sums - which we have to pay back.  It is grossly inefficient, largely uncontrolled in it's spending - and the less the state takes, the more can be left with people who can spend wisely and efficiently.

You cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor.  It is usually those who are rich who have 'made' the money - by skills, inventiveness, hard work, spotting opportunity, and even just good old luck.

1 minute ago, oowee said:

why not proffer an alternative

Simple - spend less - live within your means, let those who are good at doing things get on and do them.  Don't interfere - other than to help those who cannot help themselves.

[ShootingEgg]

1 hour ago, oowee said:

There are some farms caught up in this yes. Its only a very small number of farms and those that are should take advice. If the asset is in a company structure rather than a family structure no tax will be due. 

49% of farms is NOT a SMALL number! Even DEFRA don't agree with reeves the thieve.

Farms you shoot on WILL be effected. You're attitude towards this is pretty poor in my opinion.  A mate of mine who was forced to sell his heard of dairy cattle when energy prices sky rocketed is now looking at an utterly eye watering amount in tax if his parent passed away. All he has is assets. So to pay that ridiculous tax bill he would have to sell the farm,  Yeah great but of budget there!  He is a farmer through and through. Born into it. 

 

[button]

3 minutes ago, oowee said:

Why? So that you can disagree? 

Tax produces a pot of money that is spent by Govt. The less you take from anywhere requires more to be taken from somewhere else. Rather than tell us what you don't agree with why not proffer an alternative.

Straight from the labour pitch book, just as expected

1 minute ago, ShootingEgg said:

49% of farms is NOT a SMALL number! Even DEFRA don't agree with reeves the thieve.

Farms you shoot on WILL be effected. You're attitude towards this is pretty poor in my opinion.  A mate of mine who was forced to sell his heard of dairy cattle when energy prices sky rocketed is now looking at an utterly eye watering amount in tax if his parent passed away. All he has is assets. So to pay that ridiculous tax bill he would have to sell the farm,  Yeah great but of budget there!  He is a farmer through and through. Born into it. 

 

Don’t waste your time, fully bought in labour fan who like them can’t tell us what a working man is