Maybe things can’t only get better for Keir Starmer, as he is shamed with the latest polling just as the Labour conference begins
Maybe things can’t only get better for Keir Starmer, as he is shamed with the latest polling just as the Labour conference begins
They often hide it, but the farmers I know are far from poor. Like a lot of us, they’re rich in illiquid assets but not in terms of cashflow. That’s my situation too, though I’m not a farmer, and I don’t whinge about it.
Inheritance tax is a tax on unearned wealth. There’s no reason to distinguish one asset from all others. Those inheriting almost invariably did nothing to earn it; it’s almost always an accident of birth that puts them in line for an inheritance. That, and the whims of some elderly person. A steeply progressive inheritance tax, with no exceptions besides spouses, would be ideal. And if you’re concerned about corporations grabbing all the arable land, regulate them to prevent any firm directly or indirectly owning more than, say, 10 hectares of land. A similar rule should apply to housing.
Providing for one’s own children, passing on family traditions and ways of working, preserving the spaces where childhood memories are created; these are among the most fundamental of human desires. Take those away and your society gives way to nihilism. You make an enemy of every parent in the country.
On the other hand, a strong society understands this at a cultural level and the preservation of family traditions is deeply rooted in the society. This is where you get family farms, family restaurants, family workshops and small businesses that last for hundreds of years and produce some of the best products life has to offer. Japan, France, Italy, and Spain are some examples of countries where this is the case.
As for arbitrary restrictions on corporations: ad-hoc solutions like that rarely work. People find ways of circumventing and undermining such efforts. Instead of one corporation, people will have hundreds, each with its 10 hectares of land.
The more regulations you create, the more you reward people with the money to hire accountants and lawyers to navigate them. On the other hand, traditional farmers and other small family businesses will simply give up trying to navigate the red tape and bail out.
If you want to tax unearned wealth, you should implement land value tax which taxes the increase in value of a piece of land, not inheritance. A child who grows up on a farm and helps with all of the farm tasks their parents do every day has earned their inheritance. A suburbanite who has watched their house go from $200k to $2m in 20 years has not.
If I’m a parent in the twilight of my life and I own a big farm or a factory or some other productive asset and I’m facing steep inheritance taxes do you think I’m going to just accept them? No. I’d rather sell off all the equipment, burn the factory to the ground, treat the family to lavish vacations and parties for the rest of my life, and have them inherit nothing. If there’s no future to plan for, then live like there’s no future.