Many working British farmers earn no more than the average UK household but will be treated as multimillionaires when it comes to inheritance tax (IHT) as a result of the changes in the October 2024 budget.

This isn’t fair and it isn’t sustainable.

Fairer Family Farming is a grassroots campaign, organised by a coalition of working family farmers.

We are asking the government to make tax on farms fairer by focusing on raising much-needed tax from those who seek to avoid it whilst protecting the livelihoods of essential family farmers and their wider communities.

Farming underpins rural life, powering local economies, providing skilled jobs and sustaining communities. Working farmers like us are unique because we live and work on our land, with many struggling to make ends meet.

  • Treasury IHT plans will treat low-income farmers as millionaires. But half of farm household incomes are below £50k, with 35% below £25k.

  • Most farmers live on the land we work, and farming is often a multi-generational occupation, each generation supporting and learning skills from the last. Farms are not disposable investments – they are homes and livelihoods passed down, ensuring vital continuity of British farming and rural communities.

  • Treasury proposals have created an impossible choice for older farmers. If we retire and hand the farm down, we won’t be able to live there or draw pension income from it under government plans. If we stay on the farm with a roof over our heads, our families will be liable for inheritance tax bills they simply cannot pay without breaking up the farm.

  • These changes have also effectively introduced a lottery – if the older generation dies in the next seven years the farm will face an existential inheritance tax bill and likely be split up and sold, whereas those farmers who die before April 2026, or don’t die in the next seven years will be able to take steps to protect their livelihoods and make provisions to keep farms viable.

Farming isn’t just a job

The UK’s economy and continued food security will be put at risk. Agriculture contributes £13.7bn annually to the UK economy and provides employment for almost half a million people – that’s around 1 in every 70 jobs. Farming is crucial to our prosperity as a nation, ensures resilient food supply for our citizens and positively impacts food affordability.

Billions of pounds worth of land and property in the UK is already held by offshore trusts registered in tax havens whose ultimate ownership is unknown – if tax changes force working farms to become unviable, more land will be bought by offshore entities which contribute nothing to Britain’s economy. How often do those who hide their identity alert the government when they are liable for Capital Gains or Inheritance taxes?

The UK’s national security should be paramount. If we don’t know who owns land in Britain, how can we be sure that the security of our nation isn’t being compromised? According to DEFRA, utilised agricultural areas make up 69% of the UK’s landscape, and most military sites are surrounded by farmland: as drones and surveillance tech develops, these locations become ever more ideal places for foreign actors to buy up land in order to survey our defences and compromise UK national security.

Tax plans pose a risk to Britain

A viable alternative already exists

The government have rightly identified a problem – the use of farmland as a vehicle to avoid tax. But the proposed solution also penalises many smaller working family farms who will be unable to afford to pay their inheritance tax bills.

CenTax, The Centre for the Analysis of Taxation, has found a solution - the minimum share rule would only allow tax relief (like Inheritance Tax Relief) if farm or business assets make up at least 60% of the total estate.

This rule would:

  • Place the tax burden on passive investors – the people and entities that are currently buying up valuable farmland just to avoid paying tax.

  • Raise much needed revenues for the country from those that can afford, and should be paying tax.

  • Protect genuine farmers, especially those with smaller family farms, who earn the same as or less than the average UK household income.

Find out more about the minimum share rule on the CenTax website

Contact us

Interested in finding out more or joining our coalition?

For media enquiries: press@fairerfamilyfarming.org.uk