Rachel Reeves risks killing off the family business
Changes to how inheritance tax and trusts are treated for non-doms have already put the nation's finances on shakier ground – something I revealed in a cover story last month. Now, a new report suggests these anti-business Treasury policies may risk killing off Britain's family firms too.
Fresh analysis by the CBI's economics consultancy, commissioned by Family Business UK, warns that these changes to inheritance tax could jeopardise more than 208,000 full-time jobs over the course of this Parliament. That's more than the entire construction workforce in London. The report says that as small firms retreat from long-term investment, the wider economic consequences could be severe.
The government is planning to reform Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) – two long-standing mechanisms that can offer up to 100 per cent exemptions from inheritance tax on qualifying land and business assets.
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