Hoover entrepreneur James Dyson tears into Rachel Reeves spiteful Budget warning the Chancellors inheritance tax raids on farmers was killing off family businesses
Sir James Dyson has blasted Rachel Reevess spiteful budget and warned that raising inheritance tax would kill off farms and family businesses.
Sir James Dyson has blasted Rachel Reevess spiteful budget and warned that raising inheritance tax would kill off farms and family businesses.
The hoover entrepreneur, who is one of Britains leading businessmen, made the accusations in The Times after Labour announced last week that it was raising taxes on school fees and multimillion-pound estates.
The chancellors proposals will see family firms charged 20 per cent when handing down assets of over £1million from April 2026 - below the standard 40 per cent rate - and a 20 per cent levy on farms worth more than £1million.
Sir James, 77, says the changes are an ignorant swipe at aspiration and added that he had huge empathy for the small businesses and start-ups that will suffer.
He said: Rachel Reeves is killing off established family businesses, and any incentive to start new ones, with her 20 per cent Family Death Tax, levied each time a family business passes a generation.
Sir James Dyson (pictured) said the changes are an ignorant swipe at aspiration and added that he had huge empathy for the small businesses and start-ups that will suffer
Rachel Reeves s proposals will see family firms charged 20 per cent when handing down assets of over £1million from April 2026 - below the standard 40 per cent rate - and a 20 per cent levy on farms worth more than £1million
Every business expects to pay tax, but for Labour to kill off homegrown family businesses is a tragedy. In particular, I have huge empathy for the small businesses and start-ups that will suffer. Labour has shown its true colours with a spiteful budget.
The Office for Budget Responsibility calculates that Reevess two measures will raise £520million by 2029-30. But other British entrepreneurs have joined Sir James in criticising the changes.
Peter White, the founder of Nova Laboratories, said that his son will need to personally generate approximately £26million of liquid cash on my death to continue to own and manage the Leicester-based pharmaceutical company.
This is 40 times his personal wealth, including the value of his familys home and all possessions, he said.
According to Family Business UK, a lobbying group that represents more than 4.8 million companies, the effective tax rate would be 40 per cent rather than 20 per cent because those standing to inherit a business would need to take out a dividend to afford the tax bill.
Neil Davy, the groups chief executive, said: Tens of thousands of family run businesses and farms will be ruined by this change. For the sake of raising a theoretical £500 million a year, it is completely disproportionate and must be reversed.
Well-run, profitable companies will be left with no alternative but to hoist the for sale sign rather than be taken on by the next generation of the family creating a bonanza for investors looking to pick up assets on the cheap.
Minette Batters accused Ms Reeves of doing her level best to pull the rug from under our struggling farmers’
Industry leaders accused the Government of breaking ‘clear promises’ not to tamper with exemptions for agricultural property (file image)
Minette Batters, former president of the National Farmers Union, has accused the Chancellor of doing her level best to pull the rug from under our struggling farmers.
She has called for the Treasury to weed out the multi-millionaire chancers who buy land pretending its for farm use and save the genuine farmers from her plans to limit inheritance tax relief for farms to £1million.
She wrote in todays Mail on Sunday: The changes will destroy communities. It is not good enough to say that farmers could sell a few fields in order to pay the bill. Farms need to be a certain size in order to be viable.
While many farmers might be asset-rich, they are often cash-poor, in many cases extremely so.
Jeremy Clarkson also expressed his fury and said the changes could be the last straw for farmers who are already struggling to cope.
The presenter of Clarksons Farm writes of Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in todays Sunday Times: If the word on the rural grapevine about a farmers suicide is accurate, their policy, born of bitterness and envy, may already have tipped one man over the edge.
