The words “tax haven” tend to conjure up images of palm-fringed Caribbean beaches and whitewashed buildings covered in the brass plates of shell companies. What might surprise many is that there is a tax haven sitting under everyone’s noses, here in England. It’s all perfectly legal and above board too. That tax haven is farmland.
A report last week from People Need Nature reveals how the tax system affects farmland. “Where there’s muck there’s brass: revealing the billions hidden in farmland tax shelters” lays out the many, varied, and sometimes bizarre tax breaks available to farmers and landowners. The report reveals that £2.4bn a year of tax breaks flow to English landowners who in return often provide little or no benefit to society. This is almost the same amount as they receive in EU farm subsidies (£2.5bn a year in England). And whilst the latter has been long-critiqued and is being reformed, the tax breaks are left untouched.
