Why should farmers be exempt from inheritance tax that applies to everyone else? It’s a method of wealth redistribution, not just income distribution, it’s actually quite socialist, and one of the only such measures in our system.
Millionaire farmers driving around in their tractors protesting that when they die, their wealth shouldn’t be redistributed to any degree is pathetic.
I live in a rural area and speak to lots of farmers. Chatting to one of my neighbours in the pub about it and they’re righteously angry about it.
Drill down into their assets though and they have: modest sheep flock and attendant land, equipment etc, large family home, profitable machining and engineering business, separate from the farm, 4 other properties that they let their children live in rent free or rent out to other tenants.
I do think that the government is using a hammer to tighten a screw, but my sympathy ends for farmers when they’re hoarding assets to that degree and that isn’t even particularly large when I compare it to some of the families I work for. One I can name employs around 200 people in a major dairy operation with dozens of old family farms consolidated into the ownership of 3 siblings.
Land and farm assets like animals, equipment etc should be exempt so that they’re not just bought up by corporations. The rest should be subject to the same level of taxation as the rest of the country has to pay.
The corporations should just be taxed twice as heavily on it, reducing tax isn’t the answer to prevent corporations buying up the farms. As they don’t die, corporations should just have to pay ‘inheritance’ tax every 50 years.
Are the farms collectively owned? If not, why are they collectively subsidized?
Tax breaks for the farmers working the fields, or tax breaks for the international corporations and land speculators that own nearly all the fields?
I don’t know what it’s like over in Canada, but here in Australia it seems like the two biggest problems farmers face are the increasingly extreme climate and the vicehold the supermarket duopoly has over the market, giving them both monopoly and monopsony power, allowing them to completely screw over farmers.
We have two main parties, one which has consistently been more in favour of action on climate change than the other, and which is also the less friendly one to corporate interests. We also have a third somewhat-major party that has extremely strong policies on climate change and monopolies. Guess which of these three parties farmers have consistently overwhelmingly voted for over the past 30+ years?
So nah, fuck 'em. They’ve brought it on themselves. I’ve no interest in taxpayers subsidising them.
But maybe circumstances in Canada are different.
Yeah, that pretty much sounds like the exact same thing here.
Exactly the same in NZ too.
