European law has landed “copious egg on the faces of UK civil servants”, says the Schmidt Report. How? By rendering much of our tax legislation illegal overnight. Agricultural property relief is a case in point – it has therefore now been extended to the whole of the EU area. And that’s actually great news for anyone hankering after a place in the sun.
Agricultural property “has always been a uniquely favoured class of asset for inheritance-tax purposes”. It enjoys 100% tax relief even if it is a pure investment – all you do is buy it and then sit back “without any active input at all on your part”. To reiterate, this means that you can pass on your wealth “in its entirety to succeeding generations” using this relief. And you don’t even have to be a farmer to qualify.
Therefore, assuming you have a decent estate that takes you well over the IHTexempt threshold, and feel that “your chances of surviving at least seven years are reasonable, it really is your duty to your children to fly to the Dordogne, or Tuscany or the Algarve, and start talking to agricultural property agents”.