{"id":221635,"date":"2025-01-22T19:39:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T19:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/22\/three-major-supermarkets-hit-back-at-farm-tax\/"},"modified":"2025-01-22T19:39:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T19:39:05","slug":"three-major-supermarkets-hit-back-at-farm-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/22\/three-major-supermarkets-hit-back-at-farm-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Three major supermarkets hit back at farm tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b838\/live\/ed449990-d8de-11ef-a289-b3809f04eef2.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Three major supermarkets hit back at farm tax\" title=\"Three major supermarkets hit back at farm tax\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Tesco, Aldi, and Lidl have backed British farmers in their dispute with the government over tax changes in the Budget.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Ashwin Prasad, Tesco&#8217;s chief commercial officer, said &#8220;the UK&#8217;s future food security is at stake&#8221; and the government should pause the introduction of inheritance tax on farms worth over \u00a31m.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Tesco is Britain&#8217;s biggest supermarket and together with Lidl and Aldi they make up around 45% of the British grocery market so their warnings on Wednesday will add to pressure on the government.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Asda and Morrisons have already been vocal about backing farmers in the dispute and Sainsbury&#8217;s has also called for the government to listen to concerns.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The BBC has contacted the Treasury has been contacted for comment.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;We&#8217;ll be supporting the NFU&#8217;s (National Farmers Union) calls for a pause in the implementation of the policy, while a full consultation is carried out,&#8221; Mr Prasad said.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Adding: &#8220;After years of policy change, it has been harder than ever for them to plan ahead or to invest in their farms.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">This comes as the government&#8217;s budget watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested that farmers were likely to slash investment because of the tax raid.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The OBR released new analysis that said that while its estimate that introducing the tax would raise \u00a3500m a year by 2029 was unchanged, it said the estimate was highly uncertain and that older farmers may struggle to reorganise their affairs to minimise the new costs.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">It also said farmers may seek to limit their tax bills by &#8220;potentially running down the value of estates.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Aldi also backed calls for a pause. It said: &#8220;We all need a farming sector that can confidently invest in its future and continue to produce high-quality British food.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;That&#8217;s why we are supporting the farming community&#8217;s calls for the Government to pause the implementation of its proposed changes to inheritance tax until a further period of consultation has taken place.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">A Lidl spokesperson said the supermarket giant is &#8220;concerned that the recent changes to the Inheritance Tax (IHT) regime will impact farmer and grower confidence and hold back the investment needed to build a resilient, productive and sustainable British food system.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The German supermarket called for a full consultation. It said: &#8220;We will be raising our concerns with the government at any opportunity we get.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Last October, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that farms worth more than \u00a31m will be liable to pay 20% inheritance tax from April 2026.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Previously, farms and agricultural businesses have been exempt from death taxes.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">In December, protesters drove tractors through Westminster to protest.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">At the time, <!-- --><a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c9vky90xm80o#:~:text=As%20a%20result%20of%20the,worth%20up%20to%20%C2%A33m.\" class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" rel=\"noopener\">NFU president Tom Bradshaw told MPs<!-- --><\/a> farmers were ready to work with the government, adding there were &#8220;many ways&#8221; to make the policy &#8220;less bad&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">However, Sir Keir Starmer insisted the &#8220;vast majority&#8221; of farmers would not be affected by the tax changes.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cq8k5ez504wo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tesco, Aldi, and Lidl have backed British farmers in their dispute with the government over tax changes in the Budget. Ashwin Prasad, Tesco&#8217;s chief commercial officer, said &#8220;the UK&#8217;s future food security is at stake&#8221; and the government should pause the introduction of inheritance tax on farms worth over \u00a31m. Tesco is Britain&#8217;s biggest supermarket [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b838\/live\/ed449990-d8de-11ef-a289-b3809f04eef2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[7310,1028,846,25272,301],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221637,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221635\/revisions\/221637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}