Limit Inheritance Tax to the Regulation of Monopoly
A proposal for an Agricultural Land Monopolies Act, 2025
I do not agree with the ‘Scrap Inheritance Tax For Everyone’ policy currently being campaigned for by the UK farmers protest movement, neither do I advocate in principle for the politics of wealth redistribution, I believe in fully distributed private enterprise, meritocracy and the right to wealth creation.
That said, there is clearly a beneficial regulatory characteristic of inheritance tax (or estate duty) which should not be overlooked due to the support it gives to the equally important principle of equality of opportunity for all within society.
This is especially relevant in the agricultural sector as the ability of tenant farmers to purchase their land from large baronial estates under such taxation schemes in the past is what led to the formation of our current, and critically important, owner occupier structural model. This has empowered the peasant class, redistributed wealth and made the people more resilient to adversarial statism, and who could rightfully argue that this empowerment shouldn’t continue in the world of today, a world characterised by the rise of corporate communism and predatory asset managers looking to buy up farmland or even by ‘philanthropic’ billionaires looking to purchase vast amounts in order to control the food chain to help save us?
One policy approach to resolving the current dispute surrounding IHT for the farmers would be to separate agricultural land out from any other asset and design an inheritance taxation structure based solely on that. It could also be based on acreage and on the principle of monopoly prevention rather than on financial value, this would eliminate the risk of subsequent value-based threshold shifts by consecutive governments.
There would be an acreage based personal allowance then a progressively restrictive acreage threshold/taxation scheme (payable at point of transfer) followed finally by an acreage cap. The maximum amount of agricultural land allowed to be held by any married couple would be equivalent to one ten thousandth of the Utilisable Agricultural Acreage as determined by DEFRA at any given point in time.
As of 2025 this would mean that the maximum allowable ownership of agricultural land by any married couple in the UK would be 4,475 acres.
50% of this figure would be the maximum ownership allowable by an individual business or single person.
To ensure the effectiveness of the policy further legislation to close down tax avoidance loopholes and to synchronise taxation on trusts would be required, this along with the proposed acreage based taxation structure and cap could be set forth in a new act of parliament entitled The Agricultural Land Monopolies Act 2025.
A proposal for an Agricultural Land Monopolies Act, 2025
An act for the prevention of monopoly ownership of agricultural land and for the protection of owner occupier family farming in the UK
1. All inheritance tax avoidance loopholes will be declared nullified by this act. Offshore registration cannot be used to exempt agricultural land from the tax structure of this act. Exemption through declaration of heritage status for any agricultural land will also cease with immediate effect.
2. Agricultural land held within any trust of any description will be subject to the taxation structure as laid out in the act.
3. Foreign ownership of UK agricultural land will be prohibited. Foreign owners will be given a maximum period of 2 years in which to sell their agricultural land holdings to a British citizen or business. Compulsory purchase orders will be made in cases of non compliance, under such orders reimbursement will be at ‘price paid’ not present market value (or the lesser of the two at any given point in time).
4. No married couple will be allowed to own more than a one ten thousandth share of UK agricultural land as determined by the Utilisable Agricultural Acreage data supplied by DEFRA (and independently verified) at any given point in time.
5. The taxation schedule as provided below will be adopted with immediate effect upon the passing into law of this act, it provides for an acreage based personal allowance followed by a progressive acreage based taxation scheme aimed at removing the incentive to hoard agricultural land for tax avoidance purposes followed finally by a maximum allowable acreage cap for the firm prevention of monopoly.
Schedule of the personal allowance, progressive acreage/taxation thresholds and maximum allowable acreage cap for a single person or individual business. These can therefore be doubled for a married couple (spousal transfers permissible).
ACREAGE TAXATION STRUCTURE
Up to 1,118 0%
1,118 to 1,342 20%
1,342 to 1,566 40%
1,566 to 1,790 60%
1,790 to 2,013 80%
2,013 to 2,237 100%
Above 2,237 Prohibited