The kulaks are revolting - does Urban back big farmer?

[dessiato]

For me the issue is that many farms are asset rich but cash poor. This is due to things like the high value of essential machinery, and the high value of agri land. Its really not the same as big corporate shareholders/directors having vast bonuses and cash.

But the whole question of who should/shouldn't pay tax is, it seems, complicated. Wouldn't it be easier to force the likes of Amazon and Starbucks to pay the tax they should? There's a lot of very rich businesses and individuals who are openly avoiding tax

 

[brogdale]

Yes, corporation tax and the ability to dodge it are a disgrace, but largely irrelevant to this discussion about a first, tentative and literally half- hearted attempt to extend taxation on wealth. Of course wealthy farm bosses should pay the IHT that anyone else might be liable to, but the belly-aching and whinging produced by this change does not bode well for any transition of taxation from income to wealth.

 

[SpookyFrank]

.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Lamb prices haven't gone down, quite the opposite - I was a grazier (I rented land on short term lets, ie without secure tenure) and sold up in 2017 because landowners were taking land back in hand because they didn't know what subs would look like post BREXIT.

So farmers who didn't give a shit about your livelihood fucked you over. And still you simp for them. Sad.

 

[Funky_monks]

So farmers who didn't give a shit about your livelihood fucked you over. And still you simp for them. Sad.

I think your post says more about you, than me tbh.
If you start working for yourself, you have to anticipate that markets change and if you are offering a service, like I was (grazing), then there may come a time when people don't want it. So, I don't really see myself as having been fucked over for several reasons:

• My land rentals enabled me to build up a flock of 500 ewes, which produced about 850 lambs each year, which made half a living for me (I also worked part time).
• When I finished, I then sold those ewes, lambs and my trailer etc which allowed me to put a decent deposit on a house
• This and other jobs led me to have the kind of experience necessary to deliver a decent curriculum at degree level, which I now do.

Its no different to having to go and get another job because the place you work is shutting down.

You seem bitter.

 

[SpookyFrank]

• This and other jobs led me to have the kind of experience necessary to deliver a decent curriculum at degree level, which I now do.

You were calling my qualifications into question earlier, and yet your qualifications are that you failed at farming sheep?

 

[Funky_monks]

You were calling my qualifications into question earlier, and yet your qualifications are that you failed at farming sheep?

I invested some money onto a business, made it profitable (without subsidy, thanks very much), built an asset, saw that the future of my business was uncertain and then sold it and made a profit well over and above my initial investment. The point of businesses is to make money, how is doing that failing, Frank?

Failing, would have been continuing to try and do it regardless and putting a while lot of time and money into something that was no longer viable.