Editor’s View: Growing hope on IHT but still no certainty
© Mikeuk/iStockphoto There are tentative signs this week that Treasury officials are taking seriously the proposals from tax think tank CenTax to further amend the proposals to reform inheritance tax (IHT), which are set to come into effect next April.
The key CenTax measure, on which we first reported in August, proposed raising the threshold at which a business becomes affected by the 20% levy to a point which would hopefully take a good number of farms out of scope.
See also: Hope for Treasury shift on IHT after year of farming pressure
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There’s still little chance of any concrete news prior to this year’s Budget, scheduled for 26 November – about as late as the chancellor can push it – meaning the agonising wait for clarity goes on.
However, the chink of hope that I referred to on the publication of the CenTax proposals has clearly brightened somewhat in the interim, and it is encouraging to hear that some backbench Labour MPs are enthusiastically lobbying for changes.
Future outlook
In my speech at last week’s Farmers Weekly Awards ceremony, I returned to a theme that has cropped up in this column a few times this year – that our industry is dividing more sharply between those who are optimistic about the future and those who are not.
And while it was a joyful occasion, the issue remains the elephant in the room.
While Labour’s Defra cited “existing diary commitments” for ducking the event this year, I’m sure IHT played a part.
If the Treasury is looking for growth, it seems obvious to us that removing the threat from most – or all – of the assets of a typical farming business would unleash investment that has been quelled by the downturn in sentiment.
Indeed, there are the merest hints of an upturn in positivity already, if one takes sales of new tractors as a benchmark.
For the first time since December 2023, the number of agricultural tractors registered in September 2025 was higher than a year earlier, according to the manufacturers’ membership organisation the Agricultural Engineers Association.
The figure, however, is still 16% below the average for the time of year over the previous five years, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
And the arable sector, in particular, has plenty of prices woes beside.
Business optimism
Still, trawling through recent updates from businesses I follow on Companies House, I was cheered to see that some in the crop-growing business are in good shape.
Leading the pack are surely the Mormons. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has purchased 8,500 acres of prime Lincolnshire land in the past two years.
As a charity, it would be exempt from IHT, of course, but clearly is still bullish about landowning and farming.
Agronomy firm Hutchinsons weathered 2024 with only a modest dip in revenue and profits and now sits on a cash pile in excess of £55m.
It will be interesting to see how it chooses to deploy that.
And rounding off my list of three heavyweights is Sir James Dyson’s arable and strawberry outfit, which managed to make a 13% pre-tax profit in 2024 of £5.8m.
Well done to the 102-strong farming team there. Now lets spread the joy to those of a less magnificent size.