JEZZA CLARKSON at the Farmers’ Protest in Westminster and caught out by Victoria Derbyshire for BBC Newsnight. Clarkson has stated in print that he bought his Diddly Squat farm for over £4 million to avoid inheritance tax. It’s long been a tax avoidance scheme for the wealthy, of that there is no doubt. Their acquisition of land has also driven up the prices. Sadly, real farmers are now caught in the middle. If a non-land owning single person dies leaving an asset of that value they have to pay 40% (after an allowance of £325,000 on the estate). Until now, the wealth accrued in farmland lies outside of inheritance tax (IHT) and those who receive the assets don’t pay IHT. For example, If Clarkson or similar pops his clogs and we just consider the farm, no IHT would be paid and the full £4+ million would be transferred. Someone single who owns assets (non land or farming) dies, after a relatively small allowance, 40% would be paid. TAX DUE = £1,600,000 and only £2.4 million would be transferred. Fair? No it isn’t. The landowner and their inheritors save fortunes. One way of avoiding this is if you hand the assets to your children (inheritors) more than 7 years before your death, it’s known as the 7 year rule and is available to everyone including farmers. Get rid of it all early. Rachel Reeves has said that from April 2026, farmers will have a £1 million allowance before IHT kicks in and even then it would run at 20% (not the 40% applied to everyone else) and could be paid over 10 years (IHT for others has to be paid before the transfer of assets can be made) In reality if a farmer is married (the usual case) allowances double and if they live on the farm the house has an allowance too - so the allowance in practicality is £3 million and not £1 million. In principle I agree with Reeves to stop the tax loophole used by so many hedge fund managers and the super rich, but I think to protect the genuine small farms the allowance should be slightly higher. I also think that because there are elderly farmers who didn’t know they now need to operate the 7 year rule, there should be some exceptions made for them too. What do you think? - @carolvorders