Farmers will will react with “anger and fury” at the government’s refusal to reverse its planned changes to inheritance tax at a crunch meeting between officials and farming groups on Tuesday, the National Farmers Union president has said.
Tom Bradshaw claimed ministers and civil servants “don’t care about the human impact” of the controversial tax plans announced in the October Budget and that his members will despair at the government’s perceived indifference to their accounts.
“Disappointment doesn’t describe how I feel at the moment,” he said.
“There is no movement,” he added, confirming the Treasury is set to plough ahead with plans that have sparked protests across the country. “The government resolutely believe that they are correct in the decisions they have made, and that they are generous in the exemptions they are giving us.”
As part of her maiden Budget, Rachel Reeves abolished an inheritance tax carve out known as agricultural property relief (APR), which allowed farmers to pass their land and farming property down tax free. Several leading think tanks – including the non-partisan Institute for Fiscal Studies – had long supported the move, arguing the loophole had been abused by wealthy land owners looking to pass down chunks of their sizeable estates tax free.
In its place, the government will introduce a less generous scheme that will restrict the full relief to £1m, after which inheritance tax will be levied at just 20 per cent. It has caused uproar in the farming community, many of whom argue they will need to sell their multi-generational farms. This is despite contested government claims that most farmers in practice transfer £3m of assets without paying any inheritance tax due to other carve outs.
Speaking at a hastily arranged press conference after his showdown with the Treasury, Bradshaw said: “[The government] don’t care about the human impact. They don’t care about the intergenerational impact, they don’t care about the impact on tenant farmers.”
“The reaction from our members is going to be one of fury. One of real anger. One of the…. desperation that we have seen over recent months, and it’s what we all feel sitting here today,” he added.
The NFU boss was joined by representatives from the Tenant Farmers Association, the Country Land and Business Association and the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers to meet with treasury minister James Murray, farming minister Daniel Zeicher and officials.
A Treasury spokesman said: “We regularly meet representatives of the farming industry to listen to their views, but strongly believe this is a fair and balanced approach which helps fix the public services we all rely on.
“Our reforms to Agricultural and Business Property Relief will mean three quarters of estates will continue to pay no inheritance tax at all, while the remaining quarter will pay half the inheritance tax that most people pay, and payments can be spread over 10 years, interest-free.”