Farmers who convert farmland into woodlands, wetlands or scrub face having to pay inheritance tax. The Government wants to get 75% of farmers in England “engaged in low-carbon practices by 2030”, but has overlooked the fact that the children of any farmers doing the Government’s bidding would have to pay 40% inheritance tax on the value of the land. The Telegraphhas more.
Landowners in England are currently exempt from paying inheritance tax on land that is used to grow crops or rear animals, under policies designed to ensure farms can be passed down through generations.
But land that is turned into woodlands, wetlands or scrub, in line with the Government’s goals to restore nature and help tackle climate change, would currently be subject to inheritance taxes of 40%.
Archie Ruggles-Brise, who manages his father’s 2,000-acre Spains Hall Estate in North Essex, said the tax risk was holding back green ambition.
Mr. Ruggles-Brise is part of a pilot scheme run by Natural England to create better habitats for wildlife and plant life to be sold as credits to developers to offset the impact of new homes.
Archie Ruggles-Brise says tax risk is holding back green ambition
The scheme is one of several being rolled out as part of the Government’s overhaul of its £2.4 billion agricultural subsidy regime to help meet its goals to reverse nature loss by 2030 and cut carbon emissions.
But Mr. Ruggles-Brise said the threat of inheritance taxes has forced him to compromise on what he does on the land, which is currently mostly used to farm crops.
“We have had to make allowance as part of that process for the massive amount of uncertainty around taxation,” added Mr. Ruggles-Brise.
He said the ultimate tax bill could end up costing tens of thousands of pounds and force him to sell off part of the family estate, which he hoped to pass down to his own children.
“You have to sell things to meet the tax burden, which means that you then get fragmentation of farms and estates,” he said.
The tax threat is stopping Mr. Ruggles-Brise from converting land to scrub or wetland, which Natural England said has significant ecosystem benefits for carbon sequestration, water quality and birdlife.
It may also be holding back the development of woodland, which is vital to meet the Government’s climate change targets. Only woods planted for commercial forestry, such as conifers, are currently exempted from calculations of the value of the estate, which does not include valuable native broadleaf trees, which suck up more carbon as they mature.
“It’s a massive disincentive for us to push the boundaries to what is environmentally the best thing,” Mr. Ruggles-Brise said.
“To achieve the Government’s 25-year environment plan aims and to deliver on things like its plans for water, we need large-scale land-use change. And this is one of the things that is standing in the way.”
Removing the inheritance tax burden could spare farmers a £120 million annual tax penalty, according to analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a think tank, and Strutt & Parker, a rural property consultancy firm.
You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.
I thought the whole point of a farm was to provide food. If you’re not doing that you’re not a farm. Just concentrate on the day job and keep your tax exemption.
The Deagel 2025 population prediction for the UK in 2025 is 14 million. Therefore getting rid of 75% of farms and food figures I guess.. less mouths to feed..
It could be a load of balony Gefion.. but Deagel wasn’t just some thrown together website.. they have links with the US Dept of Defence, the CIA etc, so not to be just dismissed.
The URL below links it with the Rockefeller Foundation too..
I imagine they didn’t factor in many, many migrants or are they involved in the projected drop in the population?
It can be hard now to know what to believe except that things aren’t going to get easier for the little people in the near future.
About half the population at the moment. It is easier to join the dots on this, whereas Covid took a bit more effort to see. The more hysterical they get, the more ridiculous it all sounds. I think the Head of the UN has done us a tremendous favour by introducing ‘Global Boiling’…
So wild plants help with climate change but cultivated ones that we can eat don’t. Interesting.
There’s also good CO2 and bad CO2. Good CO2 is anything not created by humans burning coal, oil or gas (slightly simplified). Only bad CO2 causes global warming. That’s really a quite bizarre construction because fossil fuels are called fossil as they’re decomposed lifeforms, ie, whatever carbon happens to be in them was originally part of atmospheric CO2 which plants split into C and O2, releasing the latter back to the atmosphere and using the former to further their own growth. Putting this carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2 cannot cause some life on earth threatening catastrophe because it’s just restoring a earlier state of affairs where life already existed. Otherwhise, their would be no fossil fuel.
Restorative farming, rotation of crops and animals, grass fed livestock feeding the earth with their shit. Such are more and more farms, including one near to us that sells wonderful meat. Assessed as carbon neutral, the farmer told me. And to hear her on veggies and vegans an absolute delight 🙂
Note. You can raise livestock on land on which you cannot grow crops. Easy example – Welsh hill sheep farmers. Add to that that it is ARABLE farming that has laid waste to the countryside, tearing down hedges, poisoning the soil, killing birds, insects and animals on an epic scale around such farms.
So they go for meat. As a Carnivore, over my dead body.
Further to that, they will have to take professional advice as to the content of their Will, to reduce the risk of inheritance tax for their offspring. E.g. if the part liable to tax goes to a charity, it could be tax exempt.
…to be sold as credits to developers to offset the impact of new homes.
You have to hand it to these cretins. Reducing arable farmland whilst pushing up the cost of new homes via some invented ‘carbon credits system’. When the food shortages start, things are really going to kick off, it will make ULEZ look like a warm up.
Completely off topic – this is horrifyingly dangerous. I’ve stopped taking any pharma drugs, don’t trust them. With this going through there will be even less scrutiny than there was.
I presume the exemption applies to agriculturally productive land and exists in part as an incentive farmers to, er, farm, so we can, er, eat.
Modern green farmer – gimme money so I can not farm.
justinErtia
2 years ago
Is this is the UK’s brexit-version of the EU Soil Health laws that the Dutch famers have objected to? Has the 40% inheticance tax has been factored in to force farmers to have to sell some/part/all of their farms back to the state? I would wager that this controlled disposession is all part of the Agenda 2030, 15 minute city, centralised command and control envisaged by the WEF/UN/globalist supranational governance crowd.
EppingBlogger
2 years ago
We anticipate urgent action from the Chancellor, whoever it is this month. The government would not want to spoil its objective of destroying our food production in favour of growing weeds on otherwise productive land.
RTSC
2 years ago
” Mr. Ruggles-Brise is part of a pilot scheme run by Natural England to create better habitats for wildlife and plant life to be sold as credits to developers to offset the impact of new homes.”
So the countryside will be plastered with little boxes to provide housing for the million+ immigrants the Not-a-Conservative-Party imported last year ….. and our ability to provide food for them will be reduced by a bureaucratic system intended to pretend that the countryside has been improved.
The last thing we should be trying to do is achieve any of the Government’s long term environmental policies around Net zero. Every single one of them is completely unnecessary. Under the guise of “rewilding” whatever that is, they intend to restrict our food supply to the extent of rationing and banning of meat. They intend for us to have Carbon credits, restricting every aspect of our lives, pretending that the planet’s future depends on it. From controlling your heating, what you eat, where and how you may travel and what you can spend your money on, a dystopian nightmare is coming down the track for all of us. We must fight this communist Government, controlled by the WEF and Big Corporations.
Mr Ruggles Brise needs better advice.
0.04% of atmosphere is CO2.
Plants suffer when CO2 drops below 0.03%.
Only 0.4% of CO2 is man made.
Only 1% of that comes from the UK.
China, India, S America, Africa, Japan and the Far East aren’t playing the carbon zero game.
There’s been no appreciable warming, no rise in sea levels during my lifetime.
Stick to driving a tractor and producing food.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I thought the whole point of a farm was to provide food. If you’re not doing that you’re not a farm. Just concentrate on the day job and keep your tax exemption.
The Deagel 2025 population prediction for the UK in 2025 is 14 million. Therefore getting rid of 75% of farms and food figures I guess.. less mouths to feed..
64 million – not 14 million…
Well I always thought 14 was fourteen.. and that’s exactly what it says in the 2025 forecast. Read it again..
My apologies… You’re correct. There’s going to be a lot of work for undertakers in the next 2 years!
It could be a load of balony Gefion.. but Deagel wasn’t just some thrown together website.. they have links with the US Dept of Defence, the CIA etc, so not to be just dismissed.
The URL below links it with the Rockefeller Foundation too..
https://www.europereloaded.com/cia-dod-rockefeller-foundation-confirmed-as-architects-of-deagel-com-2025-depopulation-forecast/
I imagine they didn’t factor in many, many migrants or are they involved in the projected drop in the population?
It can be hard now to know what to believe except that things aren’t going to get easier for the little people in the near future.
I had no idea farming wasn’t “low carbon”.
So wild plants help with climate change but cultivated ones that we can eat don’t. Interesting.
Meanwhile each year China and India add coal fired power plants equivalent to the UK total. Every single year.
Sorry, who exactly is buying thus bullshit?
About half the population at the moment. It is easier to join the dots on this, whereas Covid took a bit more effort to see. The more hysterical they get, the more ridiculous it all sounds. I think the Head of the UN has done us a tremendous favour by introducing ‘Global Boiling’…
So wild plants help with climate change but cultivated ones that we can eat don’t. Interesting.
There’s also good CO2 and bad CO2. Good CO2 is anything not created by humans burning coal, oil or gas (slightly simplified). Only bad CO2 causes global warming. That’s really a quite bizarre construction because fossil fuels are called fossil as they’re decomposed lifeforms, ie, whatever carbon happens to be in them was originally part of atmospheric CO2 which plants split into C and O2, releasing the latter back to the atmosphere and using the former to further their own growth. Putting this carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2 cannot cause some life on earth threatening catastrophe because it’s just restoring a earlier state of affairs where life already existed. Otherwhise, their would be no fossil fuel.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/agriculture-may-already-by-climate-neutral/
Restorative farming, rotation of crops and animals, grass fed livestock feeding the earth with their shit. Such are more and more farms, including one near to us that sells wonderful meat. Assessed as carbon neutral, the farmer told me. And to hear her on veggies and vegans an absolute delight 🙂
Note. You can raise livestock on land on which you cannot grow crops. Easy example – Welsh hill sheep farmers. Add to that that it is ARABLE farming that has laid waste to the countryside, tearing down hedges, poisoning the soil, killing birds, insects and animals on an epic scale around such farms.
So they go for meat. As a Carnivore, over my dead body.
That made me wonder whether it’s a deliberate, or an accidental tax increase.
Further to that, they will have to take professional advice as to the content of their Will, to reduce the risk of inheritance tax for their offspring. E.g. if the part liable to tax goes to a charity, it could be tax exempt.
But as Mr Ruggles-Brise indicated, that will lead to fragmentation of the estate.
As for the bullshit plans for re*-wilding, as john1T said above: Just concentrate on the day job [farming] and keep your tax exemption.
*What’s produced in re-wilding projects is not wild land. It’s park land and about as much of a carbon sink as any other managed rural area.
You have to hand it to these cretins. Reducing arable farmland whilst pushing up the cost of new homes via some invented ‘carbon credits system’. When the food shortages start, things are really going to kick off, it will make ULEZ look like a warm up.
Climate change
The lie to
make you die
Completely off topic – this is horrifyingly dangerous. I’ve stopped taking any pharma drugs, don’t trust them. With this going through there will be even less scrutiny than there was.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/uk-mhra-to-recognise-medicine-approvals-2772260/
I agree BB. This means the MHRA needs to be scrapped. Taxpayers are paying to be poisoned.
How about leave farmers to do what they do best and know about the most – grow food, so that we all don’t go hungry.
I presume the exemption applies to agriculturally productive land and exists in part as an incentive farmers to, er, farm, so we can, er, eat.
Modern green farmer – gimme money so I can not farm.
Is this is the UK’s brexit-version of the EU Soil Health laws that the Dutch famers have objected to? Has the 40% inheticance tax has been factored in to force farmers to have to sell some/part/all of their farms back to the state? I would wager that this controlled disposession is all part of the Agenda 2030, 15 minute city, centralised command and control envisaged by the WEF/UN/globalist supranational governance crowd.
We anticipate urgent action from the Chancellor, whoever it is this month. The government would not want to spoil its objective of destroying our food production in favour of growing weeds on otherwise productive land.
” Mr. Ruggles-Brise is part of a pilot scheme run by Natural England to create better habitats for wildlife and plant life to be sold as credits to developers to offset the impact of new homes.”
So the countryside will be plastered with little boxes to provide housing for the million+ immigrants the Not-a-Conservative-Party imported last year ….. and our ability to provide food for them will be reduced by a bureaucratic system intended to pretend that the countryside has been improved.
Pure genius from the Globalist “green” nutters.
The last thing we should be trying to do is achieve any of the Government’s long term environmental policies around Net zero. Every single one of them is completely unnecessary. Under the guise of “rewilding” whatever that is, they intend to restrict our food supply to the extent of rationing and banning of meat. They intend for us to have Carbon credits, restricting every aspect of our lives, pretending that the planet’s future depends on it. From controlling your heating, what you eat, where and how you may travel and what you can spend your money on, a dystopian nightmare is coming down the track for all of us. We must fight this communist Government, controlled by the WEF and Big Corporations.
Mr Ruggles Brise needs better advice.
0.04% of atmosphere is CO2.
Plants suffer when CO2 drops below 0.03%.
Only 0.4% of CO2 is man made.
Only 1% of that comes from the UK.
China, India, S America, Africa, Japan and the Far East aren’t playing the carbon zero game.
There’s been no appreciable warming, no rise in sea levels during my lifetime.
Stick to driving a tractor and producing food.