{"id":199580,"date":"2025-12-24T10:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/199580\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T10:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:32:07","slug":"u-turn-on-inheritance-tax-for-farmers-snuck-out-to-avoid-scrutiny-say-tories-tax-and-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/199580\/","title":{"rendered":"U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers \u2018snuck out\u2019 to avoid scrutiny, say Tories | Tax and spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ministers \u201csnuck out\u201d the announcement that they had decided to U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers, the Conservatives<\/a> said, after the government revealed the move in a press release two days before Christmas.<\/p>\n

Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, accused the government of trying to dodge scrutiny of its latest policy reversal, under which the threshold for taxing inherited farmland will rise from a planned \u00a31m to \u00a32.5m.<\/p>\n

The move was announced<\/a> on Tuesday in a press release from the environment department after months of pressure from farmers, campaigners and some Labour MPs.<\/p>\n

Atkins told Sky News on Wednesday morning: \u201cThis being snuck out the day before Christmas Eve means that, of course, we haven\u2019t had chance to scrutinise this properly in parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cIt seems very odd that they have just snuck this out the day before Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what is more, it was a secretary of state [Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary] that announced it, rather than the chancellor. The secretary of state just did a press clip yesterday. She\u2019s not even out on the [broadcast media] round today \u2026 explaining her policy to the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re trying to sort of slip this under the radar once everybody else is distracted with Christmas preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Reeves first announced<\/a> at last year\u2019s budget that she was going to tax inherited agricultural assets worth more than \u00a31m at a rate of 20%, removing reliefs that had been in place since the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Since then, the chancellor has come under concerted pressure to reverse course, with farmers regularly protesting in Westminster and Labour MPs from rural areas warning about the impact to their constituencies.<\/p>\n

Dozens of Labour MPs were reportedly preparing to rebel against the government and back an amendment to the bill that would have introduced the tax, which is due to be debated in parliament next month.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer, the prime minister, acknowledged last week<\/a> concerns that some farmers were contemplating suicide over the changes \u2013 a worry also flagged in a recent report<\/a> for the government by the former head of the National Farmers\u2019 Union (NFU) Minette Batters.<\/p>\n

Reynolds said on Tuesday that the government would raise the threshold at which the tax applies from \u00a31m to \u00a32.5m.<\/p>\n

Treasury figures show this will reduce the amount of money raised from \u00a3430m to \u00a3300m. Officials would not say where the extra money would come from, though the \u00a3130m that has been foregone is a small fraction of the \u00a322bn of headroom which Reeves has against her own fiscal rules.<\/p>\n

Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president, said on Tuesday the announcement was a \u201chuge relief to many\u201d.<\/p>\n

Atkins, however, would not say whether the Conservatives would remove the tax altogether should they win power at the next election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need clarity from the government as to how this will apply. There will still be farms out there, where \u2013 because of the investment and the nurturing of the land by their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, great grandmothers over the generations \u2013 they simply will not be able to pay this tax bill, even with this welcome U-turn by the government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers \u201csnuck out\u201d the announcement that they had decided to U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers, the Conservatives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-199580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}