By GB News (World News) | Created at 2024-11-19 10:34:43 | Updated at 2024-11-19 12:34:40
2 hours ago
Campaigners for unjustified, vested interests need to take care not to go so over the top that they expose the hollowness of their argument.
Not for nothing did Shakespeare write “The Lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”
A case in point is the baying, hysterical response of farmers and their supporters to the Budget changes on inheritance tax.
Tax rises in the first Budget after the General Election were inevitable because of the black hole in the previous Government’s spending plans which the OBR has verified and the demand to invest in and restore our public services, particularly the NHS. That was the change people voted for on July 4th.
And much better in Labour’s first Budget that this is paid for by the wealthiest through changes to Inheritance tax and Capital Gains Tax, rather than working people paying though higher National Insurance, Income Tax and VAT.
Which brings us back to farmers and Inheritance tax. In the Budget, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves brought farmers into the Inheritance tax regime, where previously they had been exempt. Unlike any other group in society.
Yet, the treatment of farmers is still incredibly generous compared to everyone else. Paul Johnson of the scrupulously independent Institute of Fiscal Studies is withering.
“The farmers’ story is massively overdone," he says, highlighting farms are “still better treated than anyone else in terms of inheritance tax.”
Jeremy Clarkson has piled in big time, lambasting the Government. Yet Clarkson has previously said the reason he got into farming was to avoid Inheritance tax.
Well good try Jeremy, but you’re now going to be treated like everyone else. Well not like everyone else, because farmers are still getting a massively preferential deal.
A big element of inherited wealth over the last 40 years has been unearned and driven by the house price and land price boom. Inheritance also cements and entrenches inequality.
So, it is right that farmers are brought a bit more into the mainstream of inheritance tax which everyone else experiences. Yet, they will still get a much better deal than the rest of us.
If I was part of the farming lobby, and this is one of the best organised political lobbies in the country defending entrenched and vested interests, I would keep my head down.
Otherwise, the vast majority who don’t get the still preferential deal on Inheritance tax which farmers get, might start demanding further restrictions for farmers.
Rachel Reeves should stick to her guns. These tax changes for farmers are fair, reasonable, and part of the way the Government restores our public services for everyone, including farmers.
