The kulaks are revolting - does Urban back big farmer?

[JimW]

The incompatibility of farming, something as fundamental as the way we get our food, as a sustainable endeavour within the capitalist mode of production, even though it was apparently the revolution in the sector in early modern times that was more responsible for the shift to the capitalist mode than industrialism by some accounts, goes a long way to explaining why the whole thing is such a shitshow. Nationalise the land, then family farmers can be tenants of the community in the transitional period.
/Wolfie Smith

 

[souljacker]

My dad's side of the family are farmers and they were far from rich. They did sell the family farm recently and it sold for just over a million but that was split between my two uncles so wouldn't have troubled the tax man.

I'm all for taxing the clarksons and dysons of the world, especially as they have openly admitted to buying farmland as a tax loophole. But I think there should be an exemption for families who inherit the farm and continue to work it after their parents have died.

 

[Funky_monks]

And like all taxes they only have to pay it on the amount over the threshold.

This explains it well.

How many farms would be affected by Budget changes?

Estimates of the number of farms affected range from 100 to 70,000.

www.bbc.co.uk

I think it affects more than anticipated - included in "average farm size" are people with a paddock etc etc eg average farm size is 88ha, but over half are under 20ha and intensive pigs/chickens notwithstanding, you aren't making any kind of living farming 20ha (40ac). So the smallest viable farms are much bigger than this.

A farming lady on the news this morning was making the point that just owning a couple of combine harvesters already gives you £1m in "assets", but it's not as if you can easily liquidate that (or continue to do the job without them).

"Asset Fixity theory" - Agricultural assets (especially machinery) are very expensive to buy for various reasons, but due to the small size of the resale market and the fact that they become obsolete are quite hard to dispose of and recoup any kind of investment - thats why you often see old bits of kit rotting in hedges around farmyards.

I blame Jeremy Clarkson for this mess - if he hadn't given it large about buying a farm to avoid inheritance tax, that little loophole might have stayed and farmers wouldn't be driving tractors all over the shop.

Wealth managers in the city have been encouraging the ultra wealthy to buy land to avoid tax for decades, which is one of the reasons why land value is inflated way beyond it being any kind of sensible investment in terms of the potential income from farming it.

the exemption from IHT has in recent years led to lots of rich people buying up farmland as a means to pass on wealth untaxed. this has driven up the price of farmland, pricing out genuine owner-farmers.
farmers complain.
now the IHT exemption is being reduced. can expect the upward pressure on farmland prices to ease off after that.
farmers complain.
there's no pleasing some people.

The worry is that it wont, because the big new investors are the corps buying land for offsetting or the developers buying for biodiversity net gain.

 

[Sue]

I haven't really been following this and I'm sure there must be some poor farmers somewhere, but all the ones I've had the misfortune to encounter have been complete cunts and wealthy to boot.

Then I saw Jeremy Clarkson was protesting and obviously that completely changed my mind.

 

[editor]

Tax the fuckers.

Half a million people die every year. Under the reforms to inheritance tax relief on agricultural land proposed in the budget, about 500 individuals who inherit land worth more than £2m (£3m if they were married to the deceased) will join the rest of society and have inheritance tax levied on their bequest – albeit at half the rate, with an enlarged exemption and 10 years to pay it, concessions not made to the rest of us. How fortunate and privileged are they?

Farmers have hoarded land for too long. Inheritance tax will bring new life to rural Britain | Will Hutton

Prices and rents will fall under Rachel Reeves’ plans, enabling a younger generation with new ideas to enter the field

www.theguardian.com

 

[Petcha]

I've tried to back their cause. But I just can't. Even the 'small' farmers' properties seem to be worth about £3m and I gather those will be exempt anyway? So wtf are they doing complaining?

Meanwhile the rest of us are fucked.

 

[Ax^]

oh my million pound farm it barely worth my kids carrying it on and I'm going to have to raise food 20% now to make up for it

oh do fuck off

of course some exceptions but rich cunt not wanting to pay tax can generally get to fuck

 

[Funky_monks]

Quite a good explainer here: What are the inheritance tax changes affecting UK farmers?

Just for context when I farmed sheep (I did so on rented ground, never owned anything more than a truck, a dog, a trailer, sheep handling kit and the livestock). I did so in a lowland situation which is definitely more profitable than hill farming, and because I'm not from a farming background, I paid very close attention to the bottom line, not having any kind of property/land to fall back on. My 500 ewe flock made me about 20-25k/yr wage (and I was doing very well according to lots of farmers) and I also worked a few days a week on someone else's farm to make up the rest of my income.

That ewe flock took up about 2-300 ac (80-121ha) (depending on where I could get grazing) in the summer and maybe 4-500ac (162-202ha) in the winter.

Just so you get an idea what really quite profitable lowland livestock farming pays.

Oh also, by luck more than anything, because I lambed in April, I avoided Schmallenberg and bluetongue so didn't lose any animals there.
These are an added cost because as well as their death (and the associated worry), and the loss of any money you might make by selling the sheep itself, there also the lost potential to raise lambs and also the disposal cost which was about £15-20, I think.

 

[bellaozzydog]

On paper it’s not difficult, this is about Dyson and all the big whales land banking the fuck out of U.K. land with their billions so it’s a good policy

Big farms (massive operations) are colluding with capital. Fuck em

“Family farms” are either to small to push back against sainsburys et al and are victims of the “free market”

Or they are the type that whine about no “English people” want to work on their farms while exploiting cheap Eastern European labour who get paid buttons and are charged unseemly amounts of rent to live in static caravan gulags in east Anglian

Farming (see also fishing industry) is a romanticised and propagandised industry, and farmers generally propagate the class issues of the countryside with their conservative positions. (See supporting hunts and shoots)

So fuck em

 

[Rebecca Riot]

My dad's side of the family are farmers and they were far from rich. They did sell the family farm recently and it sold for just over a million but that was split between my two uncles so wouldn't have troubled the tax man.

I'm all for taxing the clarksons and dysons of the world, especially as they have openly admitted to buying farmland as a tax loophole. But I think there should be an exemption for families who inherit the farm and continue to work it after their parents have died.

That would be a sensible solution.

I live in a rural area and farmers are only happy when they've got something to moan about. They wanted Brexit but now they're complaining that they've lost a lot of their markets or are being undercut by countries outside the EU. Earlier this year they wanted the Tories out but now they want them back in again. They complain (quite correctly) that climate change is making farming a lot harder but aren't prepared to play their part in combating it.

Having said that, I do feel sorry for small family farms but they would probably be under the threshold anyway.

 

[agricola]

Quite a good explainer here: What are the inheritance tax changes affecting UK farmers?

The reference to what the French do in that article should really be read by the government, and the relevance of effective state regulation of this area recognised.

I mean we have Clarkson et al going on about the importance of food security and looking after genuine farmers, so measures should be brought in to actually do that; that these measures (if effective) would screw over the rich whose purchases are making farm ownership unaffordable to normal farmers and stop the supermarkets lining their own pockets at the farmers expense would be a bonus.

 

[agricola]

On paper it’s not difficult, this is about Dyson and all the big whales land banking the fuck out of U.K. land with their billions so it’s a good policy

Big farms (massive operations) are colluding with capital. Fuck em

“Family farms” are either to small to push back against sainsburys et al and are victims of the “free market”

Or they are the type that whine about no “English people” want to work on their farms while exploiting cheap Eastern European labour who get paid buttons and are charged unseemly amounts of rent to live in static caravan gulags in east Anglian

Farming (see also fishing industry) is a romanticised and propagandised industry, and farmers generally propagate the class issues of the countryside with their conservative positions. (See supporting hunts and shoots)

So fuck em

isn't that robbed off a Chris Mullin anecdote?

 

[bellaozzydog]

isn't that robbed off a Chris Mullin anecdote?

Carl Sandburgh ?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I can't muster much sympathy for these people who don't like being asked paying tax, but I'm not terribly rural. My great grandfather had no choice when the land he farmed was sold by the squire to the developers and turned into Whitton, but I don't think any of us missed out as a consequence, and those waving pitchforks today are the squierachy rather than their tennants.

I also think that in Capitalist terms that any business with such valuable assets should be capable of paying its way.

Does anyone have more sympathy with ordinary country volk?

Ordinary country folk don't have 500 acres.

 

[editor]

Tax the fucking fuckers

 

[Yossarian]

Hadn't heard of the Duke of Buccleuch before - apparently the current holder of the title is called Richard Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, he should be taxed for having too many names as well

 

[maomao]

We all want to tax the Dukes and let the little family farms carry on but hard for a city slicker to know where to draw the line. Maybe it should be based on farm turnover/profit and actual use of land rather than absolute value.

 

[rubbershoes]

Many people in cities think farmers are poor.

People in the countryside think they're rich.

 

[Funky_monks]

Tax the fucking fuckers

View attachment 451725

Dunno how they worked that out - inheritance tax relief on farmland was brought in in 1984.

 

[Sue]

Hadn't heard of the Duke of Buccleuch before - apparently the current holder of the title is called Richard Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, he should be taxed for having too many names as well

He's one of the biggest private landowners in Western Europe, owning much of the land in the south of Scotland/north of England. He also owns a load of art (most famously the DaVinci that was nicked a few years ago) and used to pay peanuts to the people working for him. (And then of course there were many, many people living in tied cottages.)

I remember the time he appealed to normal members of the public to donate money so he could re-roof his castle. Something i'm sure we can all identify with.

(His son's in charge now.)

 

[Saul Goodman]

(His son's in charge now.)

I bet he's a benevolent benefactor in his spare time. Probably dresses up as Santa at Christmas and hands out money to those less well off... A veritable philanthropist, I'll bet.

 

[Funky_monks]

I bet he's a benevolent benefactor in his spare time. Probably dresses up as Santa at Christmas and hands out money to those less well off... A veritable philanthropist, I'll bet.

Weirdly, I went to quite a poorly attended talk last I was at a regen farming conference way away from the main bustle about estates (I think) and one of the speakers was a Scottish (of English decent originally, I think some generations back) guy in his 60s who'd inherited a farm (IIRC just shy of 1000ac), had never farmed it, had no interest in farming it and wanted to "give it back" to the locals but wanted to do it in such a way that the land was looked after so could be farmed in perpetuity and wasn't just immediately sold etc etc and it seemed like the guy was genuinely having problems trying to give it away "properly"...........

 

[Funky_monks]

I suppose my answer to whether or not I support the famers is that I'm genuinely slightly baffled they are losing their shit over this quite as much as they are.
We had IHT on farms prior to 1984 ad there was still a farming industry, other European countries (eg Denmark) have something like 30% IHT on farms and there are still farms there.
Equally, all they have to do to avoid IHT is simply give it away to their heirs and live another 7 years.

Inheritance tax is a tax on people who don't trust their children..........

 

[Sue]

I bet he's a benevolent benefactor in his spare time. Probably dresses up as Santa at Christmas and hands out money to those less well off... A veritable philanthropist, I'll bet.

Weirdly, I went to quite a poorly attended talk last I was at a regen farming conference way away from the main bustle about estates (I think) and one of the speakers was a Scottish (of English decent originally, I think some generations back) guy in his 60s who'd inherited a farm (IIRC just shy of 1000ac), had never farmed it, had no interest in farming it and wanted to "give it back" to the locals but wanted to do it in such a way that the land was looked after so could be farmed in perpetuity and wasn't just immediately sold etc etc and it seemed like the guy was genuinely having problems trying to give it away "properly"...........

He may be better than his father as at least he was up for this (and similar in Wanlockhead/Newcastleton) though it's not like he gave it away for free.

South of Scotland’s biggest community buyout completes | langholminitiative

www.langholminitiative.org.uk

 

[The39thStep]

Tax the fucking fuckers

View attachment 451725

The original table comes from Guy Shrubsole , @guyshrubsole, author of Who Owns England

He's got a google map with the locations https://tinyurl.com/4nhc2tkf

 

[brogdale]

Many people in cities think farmers are poor.

People in the countryside think know they're rich.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Weirdly, I went to quite a poorly attended talk last I was at a regen farming conference way away from the main bustle about estates (I think) and one of the speakers was a Scottish (of English decent originally, I think some generations back) guy in his 60s who'd inherited a farm (IIRC just shy of 1000ac), had never farmed it, had no interest in farming it and wanted to "give it back" to the locals but wanted to do it in such a way that the land was looked after so could be farmed in perpetuity and wasn't just immediately sold etc etc and it seemed like the guy was genuinely having problems trying to give it away "properly"...........

I was going to suggest these farmers should split their land into small holdings and rent them to people who think farming is an easy way to make money.

I suppose my answer to whether or not I support the famers is that I'm genuinely slightly baffled they are losing their shit over this quite as much as they are.

They're farmers. They're not happy unless they're moaning.
But, joking aside, I see this all the time in Ireland. Farmers like to keep dangling the carrot in front of whichever son didn't have the wherewithal to leave home. It probably is down to a complete lack of trust in said son, but, having said that, would you trust someone who never left home and is still clinging to his mother's apron strings at 60 years of age?

 

[brogdale]

Ordinary country folk don't have 500 acres.

Or want to march in favour of their bosses paying less tax.

 

[Funky_monks]

I was going to suggest these farmers should split their land into small holdings and rent them to people who think farming is an easy way to make money.

They're farmers. They're not happy unless they're moaning.
But, joking aside, I see this all the time in Ireland. Farmers like to keep dangling the carrot in front of whichever son didn't have the wherewithal to leave home. It probably is down to a complete lack of trust in said son, but, having said that, would you trust someone who never left home and is still clinging to his mother's apron strings at 60 years of age?

I suppose that's another issue - half of food producing farms in England (if I recall) are tenanted and tenants worry their farms will be sold from under them to pay the IHT.

The elders not leaving the youngsters to get on and farm is a massive problem in agriculture as I see it. Most dynamic industries are full of young people. Who's going to come up with a fresh new look at their business when they finally take the reins at 60? Most "progressive" farmers hand it over to their kids when the kids are in their 30s or younger and therefore also won't be paying any IHT.

"Jam Tomorrow"

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

But I think there should be an exemption for families who inherit the farm and continue to work it after their parents have died.

There already is; if the kid(s) genuinely do work the farm, the parents gift it to them when they're in their 50s, so long as at least one of them lives another 7 years it's theirs tax free.