Budget<\/a> in 2024, the Chancellor announced changes to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) that left family farms and firms facing inheritance tax of 20 per cent on assets worth over \u00a31million from this April.<\/p>\nShe later raised the threshold to \u00a32.5million, or \u00a35million for married couples, in a pre\u2011Christmas U\u2011turn.<\/p>\n
But the move has not eased concerns across the sector \u2013 raising the stakes ahead of this month\u2019s judicial review.<\/p>\n
James Austen, a partner at law firm Collyer Bristow, which is acting for the farmers and businesses, said: \u2018The listing of this case before a Divisional Court underscores its importance, as does the urgency with which the court will now hear it.<\/p>\n
\u2018The issues raised in this judicial review are profound: they concern the standards by which Government should have consulted before implementing reforms with profound consequences for families and businesses across the country.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Office for Budget Responsibility said it now expects that change to reduce inheritance tax receipts by \u00a3100million a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reacting to the Spring Statement, Fiona Graham, chief operating officer at campaign group Family Business UK, said: \u2018For Britain\u2019s family businesses today represents another missed opportunity for government to give them its full support and reverse the changes to inheritance tax.\u2019<\/p>\n
She added: \u2018The eyes of all family businesses are now firmly fixed on next month when the changes to inheritance tax are due to take effect. For them, the family business tax remains another cost they must plan for which will drain investment from the company and limit the creation of new opportunities for workers.<\/p>\n
\u2018The forecast from the OBR repeats the uncertainty of how family businesses will respond to the tax. Our evidence indicates that the reforms will further reduce employment, weaken investment and productivity growth, and lead to a fiscal loss to the Treasury.<\/p>\n
\u2018If the Government is serious about reversing these trends it must properly incentivise Britain\u2019s five million family businesses and reverse the family business tax.\u2019<\/p>\n
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\n Inheritance tax raid on farms and family firms set for High Court showdown in latest blow to Rachel Reeves<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By HUGO DUNCAN BUSINESS EDITOR Updated: 10:18 EST, 3 March 2026 The Chancellor\u2019s plan to hit family firms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,300,50398,111,139,69,244,245,5192],"class_list":["post-314624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-money","tag-moneymarkets","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-thisismoney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314624","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=314624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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