Environment minister defends tax changes as farmers protests in LondonIn an interview with BBC News, Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said that farmers felt particularly aggrieved because last year, when Steve Reed was shadow environment secretary, he said Labour was not planning to change agricultural property relief (the inheritance tax exemption). He said farmers only started hearing rumours that the government was going to go back on this about a week before the budget.He said he did not accept the government’s claims that most farms will not be affected by the change. Instead, he said, “75% of the commerical farms in the United Kingdom will be within the scope of this policy change.”This policy is ill thought through. There’s still a 20% benefit for the uber-wealthy to invest in agricultural land, and with the changes they’ve made to pensions, they’ve now incentivised people to rip money out of pensions and invest in up to £1m of agricultural land. That is not going to deliver for food security. It’s absolutely nonsensical. It’s not joined up. There’s no thought about the impact on food production or the families that produce this country’s food …Let’s sit down [with the government]. Give us the question. Tell us what the exam question is. We will work with you. If you want to stop people using land as a tax dodge, let’s work out the policy that does that. But this policy is not the answer. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/19/farmer-protest-london-inheritance-tax-uk-politics-live-news-updates
Author : Andrew Sparrow
Publish date : 2024-11-19 09:36:07
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