The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[Tetchytyke]

Bamford as in JCB Bamford?

Yes. The Telegraph- ever the voice of the common man- have Bamford and also the Duchess of Rutland lamenting how the IHT changes will affect common ordinary hard-working farmers just like them.

 

[TheSmiths82]

Why is my FB profile advertising all these groups who are moaning about the farms? There seems to be 100's of them and the second I block one another one appears. I suspect they are a part of a bot factory. All basically saying if farmers have to pay tax they can't grow food and you will be starving. As far as I understand it the entire point of this law change is stop being buying up land as apart of a tax evasion scam.

 

[takno]

Why is my FB profile advertising all these groups who are moaning about the farms? There seems to be 100's of them and the second I block one another one appears. I suspect they are a part of a bot factory. All basically saying if farmers have to pay tax they can't grow food and you will be starving. As far as I understand it the entire point of this law change is stop being buying up land as apart of a tax evasion scam.

Well yes, but it's not farmers who are running the bot factory.

 

[Gloster]

But we must be sympathetic to these horny-handed sons of the soil in their rustic fifth-floor penthouses who are carefully nurturing growth in their investments, laying out seeds that will produce more earnings and milking the system.

I have no doubt no that some hard-working genuine farmers will get hit, although not as badly as most of the population do, but the tax is aimed at those who are just investing for profit or playing the system to reduce inheritance tax. Any food that they produce is just a minor sideline for them that could still be produced, probably cheaper, without the price of land being pushed up by these investors.

 

[brad465]

Wow this farmer protest escalated quickly:

x.com

x.com

What are the farmers planning?!?!?

Video attached

 

[Magdalia]

What is bad politics is upsetting tranches of the electorate like farmers

I understand about the farmers and your comments, but in publicity terms (disregarding any other rights and wrongs), picking on them is about as useful as Thatcher picking on the miners in the 1970s.

The changes to inheritance tax on agricultural land are being done because they are good economics.

Getting high economic growth is dependent on making the most efficient and effective use of scarce economic resources. One of those scarce resources is land. In the UK we haven't made lots of new land since drainage here in the Fens more than 300 years ago.

A good way of using a scarce resource better is getting rid of tax breaks that impede that resource from getting into the hands of the people who can use it most efficiently and effectively. In the case of land, that's not people who are buying it to avoid inheritance tax, thereby increasing the price which is then a barrier to entry for new more efficient and effective farmers.

Farmers currently moan a lot about what a poor return on investment they get. That's a clear economic signal that agricultural land is not being used efficiently and effectively. Two things will change that for the better: getting rid of the premium on land prices, created by the tax break, so that less capital is needed for the same output, and lowering barriers to entry so that innovative new farmers can get onto the land and earn a higher return.

It's the same with the increase in employer NI. Reeves has clearly increased that tax because it's just about the only tax that Amazon and Tesco can't aggressively avoid. And she's increased the rebates available to small businesses. But instead we have Tesco, who make three billion quid a year profit and whose CEO earns ten million quid a year, saying they can't afford the tax rise.

The same economics apply to the employers National Insurance changes. One thing that UK politics is struggling to come to terms with is that labour is now a scarce economic resource. When labour was abundant it made sense to tax it lightly to encourage employment, but now labour is scarce it needs to be taxed more heavily to encourage its efficient and effective use.

Unfortunately one of the short term impacts of this is higher prices, as businesses pass on the increased costs to consumers. That matters because of the impact on the Consumer Prices Index, which feeds through into government expenditure on things like pensions and debt interest.

As it happens the big supermarkets, all hit by the employers National Insurance changes, are de facto the price setters for petrol and diesel fuel. I expect them to recoup at least some of the increased labour costs at the petrol pumps. The net result will be a price increase on petrol achieved without increasing the duty.

 

[Harpo]

The agricultural hand-wringing is about something that has absolutely no impact at all during a farmer’s lifetime, the day job is not affected by Reeves’ new measure.

However, I do see how there could be an erosion of the number of small independent farming businesses, and there is very little that big business hasn’t made worse in acquisition mode.

 

[Shrop]

The changes to inheritance tax on agricultural land are being done because they are good economics.

Getting high economic growth is dependent on making the most efficient and effective use of scarce economic resources. One of those scarce resources is land. In the UK we haven't made lots of new land since drainage here in the Fens more than 300 years ago.

A good way of using a scarce resource better is getting rid of tax breaks that impede that resource from getting into the hands of the people who can use it most efficiently and effectively. In the case of land, that's not people who are buying it to avoid inheritance tax, thereby increasing the price which is then a barrier to entry for new more efficient and effective farmers.

Farmers currently moan a lot about what a poor return on investment they get. That's a clear economic signal that agricultural land is not being used efficiently and effectively. Two things will change that for the better: getting rid of the premium on land prices, created by the tax break, so that less capital is needed for the same output, and lowering barriers to entry so that innovative new farmers can get onto the land and earn a higher return.

My comments about farmers were something of a side issue, in response to comments by others. My real concern is that I simply don't understand what Government are thinking by favouring car drivers. I've seen the comments from some who are attempting to excuse this favouring, but there's nothing I can understand, I can only perceive that Government are being very weak with car drivers.

This does NOT come from an any anti-car stance, I reiterate that I value cars as much as anyone, the only difference is that I also value other means of getting places, including walking and cycling (often in combination with using public transport) where practical. My concern is that it's only a matter of time until the electorate gets fed up with such weakness. It's also only a matter of time until the leaders of other countries see this weakness too, which will lead to them disrespecting us. If these comments appear to be using cars as a scapegoat reason to perceive weakness, I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

 

[edwin_m]

As it happens the big supermarkets, all hit by the employers National Insurance changes, are de facto the price setters for petrol and diesel fuel. I expect them to recoup at least some of the increased labour costs at the petrol pumps. The net result will be a price increase on petrol achieved without increasing the duty.

That may be so, but the government won't see the extra revenue, except for the much smaller amount arising from extra VAT on the higher price.

 

[Magdalia]

That may be so, but the government won't see the extra revenue, except for the much smaller amount arising from extra VAT on the higher price.

They are receiving the higher revenue via the higher employers National Insurance contributions.

 

[oldman]

The net result will be a price increase on petrol achieved without increasing the duty.

That's pure speculation. Businesses will adjust in various ways as they always adjust to change, but now everything bad will be blamed on NI. Tesco are spinning a £1bn increase -actually £250 million a year for four years on annual turnover of nearly 70bn.

 

[JamesT]

That's pure speculation. Businesses will adjust in various ways as they always adjust to change, but now everything bad will be blamed on NI. Tesco are spinning a £1bn increase -actually £250 million a year for four years on annual turnover of nearly 70bn.

Surely the thing to compare against is their current profit rather than worldwide income?
Which last year was around £2.3bn.

 

[oldman]

Surely the thing to compare against is their current profit rather than worldwide income?
Which last year was around £2.3bn.

As a proportion of their turnover £250m is not a lot - they will make small adjustments to their prices and costs to cover it. I haven't seen supermarket share prices collapse since the budget - the shareholders will be just fine.

Of course the NI increase will have consequences for businesses and the economy, but they are being exaggerated for political purposes.

 

[DarloRich]

Have you ever met a poor farmer?

Yes - but not if they own the land!

 

[bleeder4]

A couple of small businesses in my area have announced that due to the budget they're closing, as the extra costs in employing staff would burn through the small amount of profit they actually make each year. I suspect up and down the country there will be other small businesses shutting up shop as well. This budget really is not friendly to small businesses at all.

 

[takno]

A couple of small businesses in my area have announced that due to the budget they're closing, as the extra costs in employing staff would burn through the small amount of profit they actually make each year. I suspect up and down the country there will be other small businesses shutting up shop as well. This budget really is not friendly to small businesses at all.

There's always a fairly large number of small businesses staggering along just waiting for the next surprise to put them out of business. At the moment there is likely more than usual because they are being crippled by paying back Covid loans.

Any business in this position will likely take the opportunity to blame the government and the budget for going out of business, but in practice many of them would have not have made it through the next couple of payrolls anyway, and they are often in completely unrecoverable levels of debt already.

To underline this, most of the changes in the budget don't come into force for another 6 months, so they're choosing to go out of business really quite early.

 

[Magdalia]

A couple of small businesses in my area have announced that due to the budget they're closing, as the extra costs in employing staff would burn through the small amount of profit they actually make each year. I suspect up and down the country there will be other small businesses shutting up shop as well. This budget really is not friendly to small businesses at all.

In a thriving economy businesses that can't cover their costs close all of the time, and that's a good thing economically. The economic resources of those businesses are set free to be deployed by another business that can use them more effectively. Hopefully the employees of the closing businesses will find other, more productive, employment. Also, hopefully the people who run those businesses will have learned from the experience, and will bounce back with new and better businesses in the future. Failing that they can get productive employment that adds economic value instead of propping up a business that isn't adding value.

There's always a fairly large number of small businesses staggering along just waiting for the next surprise to put them out of business.

One of the reasons why the UK has low economic growth is that too much economic resource is tied up in businesses just staggering along, with past government policies cushioning them from the the impact of those surprises.

 

[317 forever]

This is EXACTLY where Labour need to be strong, ie by ignoring any hysterical and wholly inaccurate cries about any "war on the motorist". There has never been any such "war", and a strong Government would be able to defend their position on this using examples such as mine, citing the vast difference in cost increases, comparing groceries and petrol prices.

If Labour keep pandering pathetically just to keep the voters sweet, then in the long run the voters simply won't respect them. And at least as importantly, neither will foreign leaders such as Trump, who cares little for what people say, he is more likely to admire the strength with which they say it. Starmer & co. have started their reign by being both misguided and weak, which is a great shame when they had so much potential, as handed to them on a plate by the Tories.

Yes, Labour seem to have had a problem with poor publicity over policies like winter fuel allowance for pensioners and inheritance tax for farmers. Yet some of their positives, like more deportations of illegal immigrants, and progress on rail franchise "renationalisation" and better bus services, resonated with the public less than they could have been.

 

[Gloster]

Yes, Labour seem to have had a problem with poor publicity over policies like winter fuel allowance for pensioners and inheritance tax for farmers. Yet some of their positives, like more deportations of illegal immigrants, and progress on rail franchise "renationalisation" and better bus services, resonated with the public less than they could have been.

Do the general public, rather than the minority who make the effort to be informed, actually know? Labour could do a bit more to push their successes, but getting large parts of the media to give even proportional coverage to them is rather difficult. I wonder why.

 

[Harpo]

Yes, Labour seem to have had a problem with poor publicity over policies like winter fuel allowance for pensioners

Political naivety more like.

There were many ways that the impacts could have been mitigated in a package of well thought out measures.

Brutal, unpopular and unmitigated measures don’t get forgotten easily.

 

[Broucek]

Political naivety more like.

There were many ways that the impacts could have been mitigated in a package of well thought out measures.

Brutal, unpopular and unmitigated measures don’t get forgotten easily.

Yes, poor implementation...

Same with VAT on school fees. I'm neutral on the policy but to do it in the middle on an academic year was either dozy or spiteful

 

[dcbwhaley]

Farmers currently moan a lot about what a poor return on investment they get. That's a clear economic signal that agricultural land is not being used efficiently


As it happens the big supermarkets, all hit by the employers National Insurance changes, are de facto the price setters for petrol and diesel fuel. I expect them to recoup at least some of the increased labour costs at the petrol pumps. The net result will be a price increase on petrol achieved without increasing the duty.

One of the reasons farmers get a poor return is the way that the cabal of supermarkets grinds down the price.

And, prior to Thatcher introducing the IHT break were family farms going to the wall in huge numbers because of having to pay IHT like other family businesses?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Nov 2024 ==

A couple of small businesses in my area have announced that due to the budget they're closing, as the extra costs in employing staff would burn through the small amount of profit they actually make each year. I suspect up and down the country there will be other small businesses shutting up shop as well. This budget really is not friendly to small businesses at all.

When the national minimum wage was fist introduced small business claimed that it would ruin them. But most of them survived

 

[E27007]

But we must be sympathetic to these horny-handed sons of the soil in their rustic fifth-floor penthouses who are carefully nurturing growth in their investments, laying out seeds that will produce more earnings and milking the system.

I have no doubt no that some hard-working genuine farmers will get hit, although not as badly as most of the population do, but the tax is aimed at those who are just investing for profit or playing the system to reduce inheritance tax. Any food that they produce is just a minor sideline for them that could still be produced, probably cheaper, without the price of land being pushed up by these investors.

An effect of the IHT as a method of sheltering wealth by buying farmland is to raise the price of the land, will farmland fall in price over the coming years and will the Conservatives reverse the IHT change of elected for the next Parliament?

 

[Harpo]

will the Conservatives reverse the IHT change of elected for the next Parliament?

Is your crystal ball suggesting an outright Tory win in 5 years? Sounds like one for an extremely speculative discussion!

 

[zero]

If they wanted to avoid hitting "genuine" farmers, they could have done something like add an exception for farmers who have personally worked on the land for (e.g.) at least 15 years before their death, and the land must be passed on to a descendant who has also already worked on the farm and/or will continue to work on the farm for a total of at least 15 years. Or have a higher threshold for such people, say £3m, before the new IHT kicks in.

 

[edwin_m]

If they wanted to avoid hitting "genuine" farmers, they could have done something like add an exception for farmers who have personally worked on the land for (e.g.) at least 15 years before their death, and the land must be passed on to a descendant who has also already worked on the farm and/or will continue to work on the farm for a total of at least 15 years. Or have a higher threshold for such people, say £3m, before the new IHT kicks in.

That would be open to abuse, for example promising to work the land for 15 years then not doing so. HMRC would have to police people's involvement, which wouldn't be easy and probably wouldn't be acceptable.

 

[Shrop]

I'm not sure why all the hang-up about farmers when the total value to the country from their inheritance tax is small beer compared to the vast sums that are fully available through taxing petrol. I've asked the question previously, about why petrol prices are so low compared to what they would be if they'd kept up with inflation over the last decade, but I've not yet seen any convincing answers. People have said that it's a political move in order not to upset the electorate, but it really isn't, it's simply demonstrating weakness.

I'm happy to reiterate my concerns, but perhaps I don't need to. However, can anyone say anything new, to explain why Labour are favouring car drivers, and meanwhile picking on smaller groups in order to raise relative small sums of money? Not only is this discriminatory, which Labour normally claim not to be, it's also damaging to the environment, which again is contrary to what they say are their objectives. Perhaps it's because Labour take the view that when the USA, along with India and China are pumping out such vast amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere and showing few signs of slowing down, then we might as well not bother doing anything. Is that where the truth lies?

But even then, it's not so much about whether or not there's any point in reducing pollutants, it's more about raising money to benefit the UK economy. So once again, why not use the vast resource available to do so (ie taxing petrol), which the electorate were already fully prepared for?

 

[Sun Chariot]

The strength of feeling amongst the nation, driven by the current Government's stances since coming to power, is exemplified in a petition which - in its first 24 hours - has gathered more than 1.5 million signees.

Petition: Call a General Election

I would like there to be another General Election. I believe the current Labour Government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election.

petition.parliament.uk

 

[brad465]

The strength of feeling amongst the nation, driven by the current Government's stances since coming to power, is exemplified in a petition which - in its first 24 hours - has gathered more than 1.1 million signees.

Petition: Call a General Election

I would like there to be another General Election. I believe the current Labour Government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election.

petition.parliament.uk

I wonder if any MPs, particularly Tory and Reform UK ones, will jump on this as "will of the people", while having dismissed the "Revoke Article 50" petition (in 2017 or 2018?), which also got over a million signatures (several million even IIRC)?

 

[PGAT]

The strength of feeling amongst the nation, driven by the current Government's stances since coming to power, is exemplified in a petition which - in its first 24 hours - has gathered more than 1.1 million signees.

Petition: Call a General Election

I would like there to be another General Election. I believe the current Labour Government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election.

petition.parliament.uk

I have a feeling the majority of these are bots.