Jeremy Clarkson exposes major flaw in Rachel Reeves farmers' tax raid as he highlights way around measures
WATCH HERE: Jeremy Clarkson fumes at Rachel Reeves' Budget during farmer's protest
GB News
Jeremy Clarkson has lifted the lid on a clever loophole in new inheritance tax rules that have been slapped on the nation’s farmers.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the new measures targeting farmers during last year's autumn budget.
In one of her first major changes since entering government in summer 2024, Reeves declared that she would end inheritance tax exemptions on farmers passing on their properties.
Starting in 2026, the so-called “tractor tax” will see farmers with agricultural assets worth more than £1million no longer be able to leave their farms to their children tax-free.
Attempting to soften the blow, the Government has suggested only around 500 farms will be hit with the new tax.
However, farmers around the country have argued the measures will further endanger family farms that already operate on tight profit margins.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves slapped a new tax on farmers in last years autumn budget
Getty
The tax continues to spurn protest across the country, with various farming groups speaking out.
Farmers have also descended on the nation’s capital several times, blockading Whitehall with dozens of tractors.
Clarkson, 64, joined farmers on their protest in London after it was revealed that his Diddly Squat farm in Oxfordshire is expected to be hit with the new taxes.
Clarkson had already shone a light on the trials and tribulations of British farming on the back of his hugely popular Amazon show Clarkson’s Farm.
Now, he has advised farmers on an “ingenious” method of escaping the new inheritance tax rules that the Chancellor has “dreamed up”.
Clarkson has publicly shown his support for British farming in the wake of the "tractor tax"
PA
The former Top Gear presenter proposed a “complicated” series of manoeuvres to engineer tax free inheritance from a hypothetical elderly widower farmer to his son in his new column in The Sun.
Clarkson suggests the son divorces his wife so that she can then marry the father. In the event of the father’s death, the farm then passes to her without fearing punitive taxes.
The labyrinthine scheme is completed when the son remarries his ex-wife (and now mother-in-law) therefore seeing the farm transferred from father to son with no tax being due.
“Bob’s your uncle!” Clarkson declared, satisfied with his proposed win over “Rachel from Accounts”.
However, his scheme hit a snag when proposing it to a farmer friend who worried he couldn’t take advantage as he only had daughters.
“Relax,” Clarkson advised and told the old farmer to marry his son-in-law.
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Clarkson proposed a novel method of escaping Reeves' tax raid
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“We live in modern times. That’s allowed now,” Clarkson wrote, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
He concluded deviously: “And it’d be worth it, just to see the cross look on Ms Reeves’ face.”
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