Cycling UK Forum

pwa wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 3:23pm A farm can be worth a lot when sold, but delivery a relatively modest annual income. I think that is where the problem lies. Families with assets that on paper make them wealthy, but with them still living off modest incomes and unable to set enough aside for inheritance tax. So farm units may be split up and land go to large companies. Which makes me wonder what the loss of farming families will do to our countryside.

A fair point.

I think that when paper wealthy farmers who could be on the boundary of IHT (probably because situation means the allowances are not available to them so the £1m figure applies not he £2.65m figure claimed) are actually living on say a salary of £25k (as per one of the farmers interviewed earlier on in this fiasco) then this change is surely not right?

mjr wrote: ↑18 Nov 2024, 10:52am

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑18 Nov 2024, 9:43am There are two things going on here. Farmers issues with this and those parties like Reform who have nothing to do with this issue but see every issue as an opportunity for self promotion and criticising the mainstream parties and especially the government who I reckon they are going to go after in the next GE.

There's a big important third thing isn't there? There's rich people who bought farms as a tax dodge, as mentioned above. Not just the likes of clarkson, but around here we've got farms bought up by minor aristocrats and successful businessman of various nationalities. Those people tend to be fairly supportive of right wing parties and their agenda and so willing both to fund parties like Reform and to publicize small farmers who are angry about the issue even though they could probably avoid most the tax if they wanted, such as passing on ownership of part of the farm well before they die, or setting up a small family farm holding company, but they don't want to do that because "single individual personal ownership is the way it has always been" and ultimately isn't that actually a culture war battle?

You are right. So why did they not go after the rich people who bought farms as a tax dodge sorry tax efficient planning? Surely Reeves and her officials could have targeted the right people better??

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 3:40pm

oaklec wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 2:18pm Actually, a quick internet search on "Chinese littering" does show that they have a bit of a litter problem

I just got lots of cute kittens when I Googled "Chinese litter"

That's funny, I got a load of photographs of those carriages that the rich used to get carried around in by four strong flunkies.

Actually my laptop changed itself from google to bing so that might explain it. I always set default to Google but every update of windows changes it back to Bing.

Mike Sales wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 2:34pm

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 2:27pm

Mike Sales wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 2:03pm I am going to carry on chucking my McD's boxes out of the car window. After all, there is so much rubbish on the verge that I will make no real difference.

Oh you greeny ecowarrior you! Feeding the wild plants on the verge with your biodegradable McD packaging compost. I bet you feel all self righteous when you do it too!!

Just as CO2 is really plant food, eh?
I wonder how they will handle my Red Bull empties.

/i wouldn't worry about them, they have wings and will must fly off into recycling anyway!!

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑18 Nov 2024, 7:51pm Since the new government took office, there's been a big reaction against winter fuel payments, and an ongoing campaign is fighting against inheritance tax changes for farm land holdings.

Meanwhile, the two child limit for benefits to low income families continues.

Unsurprisingly, child poverty has now reached record levels.

Single parents are also particularly hard hit, as are the disabled.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ecord-high

1000010325.jpg

It seems to me we have our priorities completely wrong.

Where are the voices speaking out for children, the disabled and lone parents? Whilst the likes of Jeremy Clarkson and James Dyson are given front page coverage to protect their wealth.

Why is poverty so high with children when adults of working age is lower? What I mean is why higher rate of poverty in children if their parents are running at a lower rate of poverty? I don't understand that.

Also, why are people of pensionable age at a significantly lower level of poverty? Is that the baby boomer home owning factor or the triple lock being a bigger factor? Does it show that the triple lock on pensions might not be as necessary now? Lower the pension bill to pay for child poverty reduction actions perhaps? Not trying to pit generations against each other as I kind of think the triple lock is needed but there should perhaps be similar to prevent child poverty. Especially now I have heard of hygiene poverty with school kids.

Mike Sales wrote: ↑19 Nov 2024, 2:03pm I am going to carry on chucking my McD's boxes out of the car window. After all, there is so much rubbish on the verge that I will make no real difference.

Oh you greeny ecowarrior you! Feeding the wild plants on the verge with your biodegradable McD packaging compost. I bet you feel all self righteous when you do it too!!

What I want to know, what if we burn all the fossil fuels what would we have left to make plastics out of? How will we get by if we no longer had plastics? I say we need to move away from burning fossil fuels ASAP so that we have longer before we run out of plastics to give us a chance to come up wit suitabkle alternatives.

I think the point is nobody who uses the roads pay for it directly. It is all paid for indirectly by the taxation pot we all pay into according to financial circumstances and liabilities under taxation law. VED is an excise duty not a road tax in that it is an ecise payment for use of a fossil fuel based initiall on cost then carbon emissions then value on a certain date IIRC. IT is not related to actual road use but use of an internal combustion engined vehicle. No doubt something similar will apply ot EVs in due course.

It would be fun to see a pay per mile road tax to come in where you pay according to wear and tear on the road that your mode of transportation causes. That of course would not stop the VED being applies as that is something different. So DM reading motorists will get stung twice when they use their vehicles. That would make me chuckle for days.

Rejoinders are good but don't they have to have a validity about them? Otherwise you're a bad as the motorist with his fallacies.

My pov is that VED is for cars and car use not bicycles so even if a cyclist pays VED for his car that does not transfer to the bike because that does not have any excise duty applied to it for using on the road. Two separate routes of transportation with two different sets of economics.

You don't hear pedestrians who also drive claiming they pay for the roads as a pedestrian because they drive as well why do cyclists link ved to cycling in a way pedestrians don't? Just a thought.

However as a taxpayer you pay into the sane pot which contributes to maintaining roads that could be a riposte, ripost or repost, whatever your want it to be.

Personally I doubt there's not enough wit among the cycling masses to make a riposte that's pithy enough to hit home. So tbh I say let it slide. You've already won because you're fitter and healthier because of your cycling so why bother trying to win an unwinnable argument with someone who will not accept what you say? Machismo to always want to win perhaps? IDK but what is the point of it?

Carlton green wrote: ↑18 Nov 2024, 7:55am

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑17 Nov 2024, 9:05pm I mostly think Streeting gave good comments on this matter and I feel things are the better for his comments, mostly at least. I personally would not want to stifle opinion or comment on this matter.

Whilst I disagree with Streeting I wouldn’t want to stifle comment. However it’s inappropriate for Government Ministers to speak publicly on this issue so Streeting shouldn’t.

If we never put in place laws that were anything but perfect then nothing would ever happen. We put laws in place to improve things as best we can. Remember that: ‘Perfection is the enemy of good’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_i ... my_of_good

So you do not think that some issues are just too serious to let through laws that do not consider the whole issues in an effort to get to a point that does work well and as intended eventually via iterations and improvements I take it. I think this is one area that needs to be done better than this law with other options in place first.

Wasn't there other government ministers who spoke in interviews about their support for the bill? I seem to recall a female minister, possibly the education minister who was on tv a lot about then, who expressed support for the law and made comments about it. So it is not just Streeting if I recall correctly.

There are two things going on here. Farmers issues with this and those parties like Reform who have nothing to do with this issue but see every issue as an opportunity for self promotion and criticising the mainstream parties and especially the government who I reckon they are going to go after in the next GE.

Can you not separate the two parties? One is farmers and their representatives. The other are westminster parties and certain press.To me they are not the same entities.

BTW I have lived in ther country for most of my life but have no direct farming connections. I have had friends in farming including one who was generations back in farming around north lancashire, yorkshire and cumbria. Heck they even have a lot of generations buried in the family plot in the local churchyard. My mate even told me where his plot is. They are of the land as much as anyone can be.

Technically they are not rich but they do have a lot of land that might result in edging up to the thresshold. Not sure they would pass it despite owning a few houses and cottages that could generate a fair amount of money. Certainly a large farm complex for the area (I have seen it from the hills above it. Quite impressive farm. I do know that they would not be able to afford the tax bill if it was applicable even in 10 years of interest charged repayment period. I guess they are culture warriors in not being supportive of the westminster hacks taking the decisions that could seriously affect them.

BTW my friend's sister managed to get their own farm in Cumbria and are doing very well. A large farm by Cumbrian standards and worth a fair bit. That one is more than likely to be subject to IHT if it stays in place that long.Still not likely to afford paying IHT without selling off land or some other drastic approach. Just culture warriors I guess.

Up round here farmers are too up front and straight talking to be culture warriors. That idea makes me laugh.

Whenever I have seen interviews on TV about this it is always some farmer being interviewed. For example there was this very articulate woman interviewed on IIRC newsnight who was the daughter of a farm owner who will eventually inherit the farm so is very much within genuine farming. What are culture wars? Is it culture wars to try and make out that it is not farmers or those representing farmers in tv news interviews or driving their farm vehicles around Llandudno during the Welsh labour part conference? Distant from genuine farming indeed!

One of the clear requests is for the Chancellor to explain how their affected farm figures differ from those produced by the government party responsible for farming. To explain how they got them and to actually look again as they differ wildly from the farming experts in the government department and from the farming union's figures.

Jdsk wrote: ↑15 Nov 2024, 2:59pm

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑15 Nov 2024, 10:33am ...
One final point. Wasn't there advice to the cabinet by a top civil servant saying that they should not get involved in the public debate by giving their comments or POV? I find that a bit problematic. Legal or systemic advice is good but if it was basically an instruction to an elected minister then I feel the advisory role of civil service is a little over stepped. I also wonder if he was influenced by the PM who is publically quoted as supporting this bill. Ok for him but not for others in his government?
...

The Cabinet Secretary's letter:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -ministers

This was constitutionally appropriate and a sensible reminder.

Streeting shouldn't have made the comment about costs having to come from other NHS activities.

Jonathan

PS: Of course this would all be less of a problem if so many Ministers weren't MPs.

I do wonder where costs would come from? One pot for everything so what goes? Simple question to be answered should it go through. However I do think it is not relevant or should not be relevant to the debate. The debate should be on whether it is right to do so and later once it is in law the money needs to be found for it. Secondary question.

For me I would ask how can there be no coercing effect due to the condition of the one seeking assisted dying. The old phrase my gran used to say was "shoot me now, if I had a gun I would do it myself!". Earlier on it was because she felt a burden to her relatives and everyone else involved in her care. Later on it was in her congnitive moments that she wanted to end it to avoid the less cognitive moments. Overall her condition was the coercive factor or a part of it. That and the effect it had on others. The best palliative care in the world can only help but not solve this. It all msakes me question the law if it was made into effect.

I mostly think Streeting gave good comments on this matter and I feel things are the better for his comments, mostly at least. I personally would not want to stifle opinion or comment on this matter.

Csn I just ask a question about most cyclists do pay VED because they're motorists too? You pay VED to use your csr on the road, right? So what has it to do with your use of the road when on the bicycle? It is not paid to use your cycle too so how relevant is that riposte? Is it not technically relevant? VED for car use not cycle use so thst IMHO has no logic as a comeback to this motorists complaint. I would leave that one out as it is not defendable really

All contact between tyre and road has an effect, just that it is so much less with cycles but surely it is not technically true that cycling causes no damage. It is just negligble at most but still there. Pedantic I know.

My riposte is kind of a tangent. I do not know the exact figure but there is a taxable income level above which you become a net tax payer not a state beneficiary. IIRC it used to be about £50 odd thousand. Average salary is less than this so most people do not pay their way. I would need to find a concise and pithy way of making that point though. It could imclude asking them if they earn more than this amount or are they spongers too!!

I totally dislike this kind of discussion. There is only one way to engage with poeple who raise this issue and that is to ignore them and move on. It is never worth engaging with them on this as you never change opinions so entrenched that they raise this. No comeback will do any good and it only enhances the them and us attitude. Even on here I feel the othering going on. We need to move on and forget about changing minds on forums. That's just my POV.