Business leaders are urging the Chancellor to abandon plans for a 20% inheritance tax on family firms and farms. In her Budget in 2024, the Chancellor announced changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief that saw family farms and firms facing inheritance tax of 20% on assets worth over £1m from this April - although she later raised the threshold to £2.5m. Campaign group Family Business UK (FBUK) warns that this tax will jeopardise jobs and investment, with chief executive Neil Davy saying: "This is the wrong policy at the wrong time." A FBUK survey shows that many family businesses are concerned that they will be hit by the tax raid, while a quarter are worried that they will not still be family-owned in a decade. James Reed, chairman and chief executive of recruitment firm Reed, said: "Family businesses are the backbone of our economy and generally excellent employers, so there is a good reason that for decades it has been possible to pass them safely from generation to generation." He added: "The changes to the way they are taxed coming into effect in April put all that at risk. Great British companies will be broken up and sold off to foreign owners and private equity."
