Farming protests

[David Newton]

There was a big protest today in London at Theeves and Two Tier's tax increases on farms. The cartoonist of the Telegraph did his usual wonderful job of capturing the zeitgeist of things in a really funny way.

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[Bernard Woolley]

I wonder if Matt, or anyone else at the Torygraph has bought farmland to avoid tax? You know, making it more expensive and unavailable for actual farmers?

[Johnnie Lyle]

I wonder if Matt, or anyone else at the Torygraph has bought farmland to avoid tax? You know, making it more expensive and unavailable for actual farmers?

Probably, but honestly pretty much everyone pursues a tax dodge wherever possible, to hell with the consequences to others.

Seen newspapers do some really crazy expensive shit to dodge a little tax, despite hemorrhaging money hand over fist.

So wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover individual or institutional tax dodges at the Torygraph - or pretty much anywhere else they thought of it, probably amongst the tax supporters too.

[Bernard Woolley]

We should not, therefore, be surprised that certain media outlets, opened by rich people, are stoking protests by people they have screwed over. Convincing them that they’ll be affected when most won’t. When governments close tax loopholes, follow the money when there are protest.

[Johnnie Lyle]

We should not, therefore, be surprised that certain media outlets, opened by rich people, are stoking protests by people they have screwed over. Convincing them that they’ll be affected when most won’t. When governments close tax loopholes, follow the money when there are protest.

Or that the counter-editorials are also funded by rich people who get rich on the new loopholes.

Or the tax lawyers who get rich either way.

[Bernard Woolley]

Both are possibly true.

[Johnnie Lyle]

Both are possibly true.

They’re a safe bet.

Sadly tax policy is usually a shell game of everyone trying to make someone else pay while benefiting their preferred group, and then backends to ensure that connected someones don’t pay too much. The end result is a very complex, inefficient and manpower intensive tax system which is effectively a bunch of unnecessary cancellations.

Which has spawned entire industries to profit off.

Or, to quote Avery Tolar in The Firm:

Being a tax lawyer's got nothing to do with the law. It's a game. We teach the rich how to play it so they can stay rich. The IRS keeps changing the rules so we can keep getting rich teaching them.

[Pdf27]

I wonder if Matt, or anyone else at the Torygraph has bought farmland to avoid tax? You know, making it more expensive and unavailable for actual farmers?

Hard to track down - Viscount Rothermere (owner of the Mail and i) owns 4,700 acres in Dorset and "more than 300 acres" in Wiltshire, both held by offshore trusts to dodge tax and purchased relatively recently. The 1st Viscount owned around 10,000 acres - I can't find anything to show it was ever sold.

[Simon Darkshade]

In the alternate, or even in addition to any concerns held by the powerful, it could be that there could be many thousands of farmers genuinely concerned by the proposed measures. The scale of protests from a group not given to such action does not suggest an entirely concocted issue.

British farms are, naturally, smaller than those here, but the cost of land per acre does mean that even a very small farming business is nominally over the arbitrary threshold. There are a lot of those, and more than just 477 farms would be affected.

[Bernard Woolley]

I’m sure they are, Simon. But, it does seem that in the main they are being mobilised to support the interests of the wealthy. Where were the protests against the trade deals with Australia and New Zealand? Both very damaging to U.K. farming. Where were the protests about dumping of raw sewage into rivers?

It’s not the first time that ordinary people have been convinced by the wealth to act against their own interests, or in the interests of said wealthy.

[Simon Darkshade]

Based on the available information, I don't believe that they are being mobilised to act against their own interests. I'd say that there isn't any evidence that I've seen, to this point that, 'in the main', this is being driven by the wicked wealthy.

A farm worth 1 million quid or even 2 million does not translate to the farmers being wealthy; indeed, they can be up to their eyeballs in debt and not making any profit at all for multiple years. It isn't as fungible an asset as a house in the hands of someone willing and capable of selling.

Inheritance tax is something that goes to the heart of the essence of farming for many people - the ability to work the land and pass it on to your children to do the same. It isn't the 'Big Farms' that will be impacted by this, as they have higher profit margins due to farming economies of scale, as well as the ability to divest themselves of certain properties. But Farmer Giles of Ham, operating a small cereal and sheep farm nominally worth 1.2 million, is utterly buggered.

Reeves' recent justification that these measures are needed to 'save our NHS' don't pass the sniff test, nor do the Government figures on only 477 farms being affected.