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The meek shall inherit the earth

Part time vacuum cleaner salesman and resident of Singapore, Sir James Dyson, criticised Chancellor Rachel Reeves for withdrawing 100% agricultural property relief from estates worth more than £1 million. From April 2026, inheritance tax will apply with an effective rate of 20% - half the rate applicable to other property. Dyson claims the change will "kill off entrepreneurship" and that "small businesses and start ups" will suffer most.

Sir James unaccountably omitted to mention that he is one of the largest landowners in Britain, growing crops on 36,000 acres through his business Dyson Farms. His fortune is currently estimated at £20.8 billion 🧑🏻‍🌾🚜
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Persephonee · 26-30, F
Stopped clocks and all that. £1M is basically about 40 acres of farmland. The average British farm size is around 215 acres.

On the other hand lots of nice areas of flat land will be being sold off cheaply so the cementing-the-countryside lobby will be cheering.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@Persephonee Prime arable in eastern England, perhaps, but certainly not where I work. Anyhow, the main point is that non-farmers investing in agricultural land to shield their capital from tax have driven up market prices to levels which exclude people who actually make a living from producing food. And most - Dyson being an honourable exception - do not use their land productively. So the exemption has failed in its original intention to support genuine farmers and is no longer in the public interest.