Prices of the electricity we use to charge

Peter.Bridge

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Apr 19, 2023
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Starmer's plan to make farms liable to inheritance tax is a terrible mistake. That our farmers are increasingly ageing due to the impossibility of the young entering the industry with the high cost of farmland in this country is already a serious problem. The only bright spot is inheritance where farmer's own children inherit the farm at no cost to carry on running it.

But Starmers plan may kill that.

Only yesterday listening to one such young adult who has been looking forward to continuing the 200 acre farm from the father soon showed the scale of the problem. Prime farmland with a value of well over £2 million means a liability of £400,000 at the minimum 20% inheritance rate. Where can they find that £400,000 to inherit the farm? Farming just doesn't pay well enough to borrow that much, farms are relatively cash poor. So they'll have to sell it to meet the tax bill and pocket the balance of the cash to pay to rent it from the investor who buys it.

But that doesn't work well either so they may not bother. Even before Starmers plan the large farm next door to me is giving up the unequal struggle after being run by two generations, father followed by elder son and then by younger son who is now packing in. With no chance of anyone else trying, it's now being taken over by Surrey Wildlife Trust who will be running if on best environmental lines, in part to house their grazing herds between use to maintain land elsewhere, so no longer a fully productive commercial farm.
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MikelBikel

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Jun 6, 2017
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Let's be serious.
How much do you think Clarkson rakes in a year? Can you see him reduce his own standard of living because Rachel Reeves put up the employer's contribution by 1.5%?
I can see that those in hospitality sector may hesitate whether to get out or reduce staffing but those farmers? No. As for producing less food, I don't think they will.
Clarkson? What's he got to do with it?
 

MikelBikel

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Jun 6, 2017
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And the website spams with cookies!
 

Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,447
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Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
Starmer's plan to make farms liable to inheritance tax is a terrible mistake. That our farmers are increasingly ageing due to the impossibility of the young entering the industry with the high cost of farmland in this country is already a serious problem. The only bright spot is inheritance where farmer's own children inherit the farm at no cost to carry on running it.

But Starmers plan may kill that.

Only yesterday listening to one such young adult who has been looking forward to continuing the 200 acre farm from the father soon showed the scale of the problem. Prime farmland with a value of well over £2 million means a liability of £400,000 at the minimum 20% inheritance rate. Where can they find that £400,000 to inherit the farm? Farming just doesn't pay well enough to borrow that much, farms are relatively cash poor. So they'll have to sell it to meet the tax bill and pocket the balance of the cash to pay to rent it from the investor who buys it.

But that doesn't work well either so they may not bother. Even before Starmers plan the large farm next door to me is giving up the unequal struggle after being run by two generations, father followed by elder son and then by younger son who is now packing in. With no chance of anyone else trying, it's now being taken over by Surrey Wildlife Trust who will be running if on best environmental lines, in part to house their grazing herds between use to maintain land elsewhere, so no longer a fully productive commercial farm.
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Farms (also family businesses) get the first £1mil tax free.
The rest gets reliefs. In case of a farm, grazing land, the farm house, farm shop etc. In practice, farms up to £2 mils in value will be passed on practically tax free. The excess is charged at 20%.

The number of farms likely to be impacted each year is likely to be around 500 from 2026.

If I passed on a house worth £2 mils, £325k is tax free, plus £175k at nil rate, then 40% on the rest.

Honestly, do you still think they are hard done? How many of us inherited a cool £2 mils tax free from our parents?
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,260
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Farms (also family businesses) get the first £1mil tax free.
The rest gets reliefs. In case of a farm, grazing land, the farm house, farm shop etc. In practice, farms up to £2 mils in value will be passed on practically tax free. The excess is charged at 20%.

The number of farms likely to be impacted each year is likely to be around 500 from 2026.

If I passed on a house worth £2 mils, £325k is tax free, plus £175k at nil rate, then 40% on the rest.

Honestly, do you still think they are hard done? How many of us inherited a cool £2 mils tax free from our parents?
The youngsters are not hard done, far from it. My protest is about how the minority of privately owned family farms will end up as unproductive land and the young lost to farming. It's been going on for many years and is why so many of our farmers are pensioners with no-one to follow. Why vast areas of the North Downs here are vacant investment land producing no food.

And that is only touching on the real problem of our stupid policies. Elsewhere huge tracts of our farm land are being turned into national forests in the green agenda. Our Dairy farming formerly supplying the whole of or dairy needs has been greatly reduced, the EU to blame for that. We no longer produce all of our pork and bacon.

The failure to reward farmers to produce real food for our needs has led to extensive non use of farms for food production. Such uses as growing lavender, flowers and exotic foreign plants as so called superfoods. Not producing anything such as turning the land over to holiday stay chalets, childrens farms, leisure trails, off road riding and driving areas etc.

So we increasingly feed our rapidly expanding population by importing. I well remember how bad it was in WW2, heaven help us if we have WW3 with shipping in all that food cut off.

We have never been as vulnerable before in all of our previous history.
.
 
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MikelBikel

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 6, 2017
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Ireland
One celebrity TV actor/part time farmer does not a summer make. Personal attack?

Is he qualified?
Who paid him?
Is there any e-merit-us in what he says?
A pro-fessor (knows nothing about farming) from London (not famous for its farming) School (should stick to teaching?) Of Economics (like the one who pretended to work for BOE?).
Now the above may qualify as just an ad hominem on Paul Cheshire? (can he make cheese?). Or alternatively abolish inheritance tax, on Family Farms, and there is no Loophole! :)
 
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Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
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The youngsters are not hard done, far from it. My protest is about how the minority of privately owned family farms will end up as unproductive land and the young lost to farming. It's been going on for many years and is why so many of our farmers are pensioners with no-one to follow. Why vast areas of the North Downs here are vacant investment land producing no food.

And that is only touching on the real problem of our stupid policies. Elsewhere huge tracts of our farm land are being turned into national forests in the green agenda. Our Dairy farming formerly supplying the whole of or dairy needs has been greatly reduced, the EU to blame for that. We no longer produce all of our pork and bacon.

The failure to reward farmers to produce real food for our needs has led to extensive non use of farms for food production. Such uses as growing lavender, flowers and exotic foreign plants as so called superfoods. Not producing anything such as turning the land over to holiday stay chalets, childrens farms, leisure trails, off road riding and driving areas etc.

So we increasingly feed our rapidly expanding population by importing. I well remember how bad it was in WW2, heaven help us if we have WW3 with shipping in all that food cut off.

We have never been as vulnerable before in all of our previous history.
.
the solution is surely to make a career in farming more attractive?
Taxation is to redistribute resources, if you take some money from the 500 richest farmers to spend on improving the working life of 100,000 farmers then what's wrong with that?
 
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Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
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679
France has even more illegal immigrants.
Yes - France has no borders, except with England and doesn't event attempt to check who is coming, as long as they are not British.....

Of course as everyone knows, we British are the real threat. We might smuggle in a sausage or a steak pie... Speaking of which.... I'm peckish.
 

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,659
679
The youngsters are not hard done, far from it. My protest is about how the minority of privately owned family farms will end up as unproductive land and the young lost to farming. It's been going on for many years and is why so many of our farmers are pensioners with no-one to follow. Why vast areas of the North Downs here are vacant investment land producing no food.

And that is only touching on the real problem of our stupid policies. Elsewhere huge tracts of our farm land are being turned into national forests in the green agenda. Our Dairy farming formerly supplying the whole of or dairy needs has been greatly reduced, the EU to blame for that. We no longer produce all of our pork and bacon.

The failure to reward farmers to produce real food for our needs has led to extensive non use of farms for food production. Such uses as growing lavender, flowers and exotic foreign plants as so called superfoods. Not producing anything such as turning the land over to holiday stay chalets, childrens farms, leisure trails, off road riding and driving areas etc.

So we increasingly feed our rapidly expanding population by importing. I well remember how bad it was in WW2, heaven help us if we have WW3 with shipping in all that food cut off.

We have never been as vulnerable before in all of our previous history.
.
But you'r old fashioned Flecc. (sarc)

Don't you know, real farms produce co2 and cows have flatulence which is METHANE!!!

We should all eat super foods like flowers. Then everything would be lovely. The last thing you should be eating is pork, or bacon, or beef, or lamb and worst of all milk!!!

If we did this, the misanthropic left would like us all better - or would they? I think they just hate people - especially white ones, and men especially, and people who know what sex they are.
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,260
30,648
the solution is surely to make a career in farming more attractive?
Taxation is to redistribute resources, if you take some money from the 500 richest farmers to spend on improving the working life of 100,000 farmers then what's wrong with that?
Of course, as I said make real farming pay for everyone. But we dont do that, instead our idiot politicians just make matters worse with stupid policies which progressively kill so much of our farming.
.
 
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MikelBikel

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 6, 2017
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Taxation is to redistribute resources, if you take some money from the 500 richest farmers to spend on improving the working life of 100,000 farmers then what's wrong with that?
50 largest farms in UK
The biggest land owner in UK must king charlie's "duchy" of cornwall. So start "redistributing" with him, yes? Oh, gov have made him exempt? What a surprise? If you're going to bash the kulaks, then start at the top, eh? ;)
 
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Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
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679
I was joking before about the steak pie. I'm having that for lunch tomorrow. Tonight I have left over curry from last night when I wined and dined my partner. It's a good recipe:

3 medium onions chopped fine
half a red pepper
2 chiilis (Sainsburies grade2 for heat).
I tin chopped tomatoes
500 grms of chicken thigh fillets
2 heaped tea sps of garam masala (I sometimes add cumin - 3/4 of a tea spoon).
1 good tea sp table salt
tomato pure
3 cloves of garlic
Coriander leaves fresh
three or four cooking tomatoes.

Heat large pan and fry chopped onions, peppers, chopped chillis, in a table spoon of olive oil until soft.

Add garlic and salt and stir into vegetables

Chop chicken thighs into suitable chunks and stir into vegetables

Add salt, and spices - stir but don't let it burn.

Add tin of chopped tomatoes and stir on high heat until mixture comes to boil. May need a LITTLE water - but not too much.

Add a squirt of tomato pure if you like.

Cover and simmer for half an hour, keeping an eye on water content. If it gets too dry, add small amounts of water. You should aim for a thickish sauce - not watery. Play that by ear / eye.

Boil rice. I favour American long grain easy cook rice these days.

Cook rice for required time. 10 minutes Basmatti or 15 minutes for A. Long Grain.

When meat has been cooked for 20 minutes to half an hour, cut up salad tomatoes and stir into mix with plenty of coriander leaves and cover - no heat -just let it settle while rice is cooked.

Strain rice in sieve and rinse with boiling water. Allow to drain completely and serve.

Goes well with good red wine or beer - as you like.


I have made many curry recipes over the years, but favour this one these days over those with loads of butter and ghee. I used to love those but cholesterol is higher with more fat. In times past I added many more spices and curry leaves. taste changes maybe.

Process takes about half an hour if you are organised.
 
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MikelBikel

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Jun 6, 2017
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347
Ireland
"But cash from investors and institutions is being directed towards sales with *non-agricultural income streams* and long-term strategic *development* appeal." Kerching!
..."the crown estate..". So is Charlie cashing in his chips? ;)
 

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,659
679
Of course, as I said make real farming pay for everyone. But we dont do that, instead our idiot politicians just make matters worse with stupid policies which progressively kill so much of our farming.
.
Bravo!

Real Farming at 1100 feet asl in the Pennines end of March.

Ewe found dead on high field lamb extracted also lifeless.


 
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soundwave

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 23, 2015
16,996
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they should grow cheese 10 quid a gram :cool:
 

Peter.Bridge

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 19, 2023
1,328
609
And the website spams with cookies!
Which bit ?

“The inheritance tax loophole on farmland, introduced in 1984, simply pushed up the price of land without improving returns to active farmers.

“This is because, like most agricultural subsidies, the value of the relief was capitalised into land values. As tax planners cottoned on to its role as a licence to avoid IHT, they advised their super-rich clients to buy land and take advantage of it. In the 20 years to 2012, the price of farmland increased fourfold.

“This turned landowning farmers into millionaires but — especially since land represents a cost of production — did no good to the incomes of food producers. It created impoverished millionaires who claimed a need for more support. At the same time, because more expensive land had to be squeezed even harder for the last drop of revenue, the environmental damage caused by intensive agriculture was made worse. Taking at least some of this tax loophole away will do no harm to family farmers but will help both public revenues and the environment.

“Just a shame the relief was not wholly abolished.”
 
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MikelBikel

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 6, 2017
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AHA agri holdings act 1986..changed re 2020 act came into force 1 Sep 2024..
What a coincidence? Another tentacle of the Uniparty?
And they're not kulaks, just poor tenants!:confused:
 
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Ghost1951

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Jun 2, 2024
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679
So we increasingly feed our rapidly expanding population by importing. I well remember how bad it was in WW2, heaven help us if we have WW3 with shipping in all that food cut off.

We have never been as vulnerable before in all of our previous history.
.
"We have never been as vulnerable before in all of our previous history." flecc

Too true.

Did you know that the Nordic nations (Sweden and Norway) are sending out civil defence pamphlets warning the population to lay in a month's supply of necessities?

I have kept a month's worth of food in house since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and also a longer term food store of 30 kilos of wheat and a hand grinder. In the current instability - especially since permission to use ATACAMs on Russian territory, I suspect that most people in the UK have NO IDEA how vulnerable the just in time food delivery system is. Can you recall how the supermarkets emptied at the beginning of covid?

If things got a bit awkward with the Russians - the shelves would be empty in two days.



Edit:

There may be a mistake above here. I thought I saw a reference this morning in the press to a request that people lay up necessities for a month. On the BBC website this evening it saus a week.
 
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Ghost1951

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Jun 2, 2024
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Which bit ?

“The inheritance tax loophole on farmland, introduced in 1984, simply pushed up the price of land without improving returns to active farmers.

“This is because, like most agricultural subsidies, the value of the relief was capitalised into land values. As tax planners cottoned on to its role as a licence to avoid IHT, they advised their super-rich clients to buy land and take advantage of it. In the 20 years to 2012, the price of farmland increased fourfold.

“This turned landowning farmers into millionaires but — especially since land represents a cost of production — did no good to the incomes of food producers. It created impoverished millionaires who claimed a need for more support. At the same time, because more expensive land had to be squeezed even harder for the last drop of revenue, the environmental damage caused by intensive agriculture was made worse. Taking at least some of this tax loophole away will do no harm to family farmers but will help both public revenues and the environment.

“Just a shame the relief was not wholly abolished.”
You don't need a large farm for it to be valued at more than a million pounds. of course the return on the money if you had to buy it would be risible.
 
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