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“The Green Party’s proposed asset and inheritance taxes would be a reckless attack on intergenerational family farms,” says ACT MP and dairy farmer Andrew Hoggard.
The ‘Green Budget’ includes a 2.5% annual tax on a couple’s net assets over $4 million and a 33% tax on inheritances over a $1 million threshold.
“The Greens’ proposed taxes on assets, trusts, and death would see land held within the family for generations sold off just to pay the tax bill. We’d see a scarring effect on rural communities, a sledgehammer to rural investment, and food production shifted offshore.
“The Greens seem to have a real hard time understanding the difference between realised gains and unrealised gains. Whilst a farmer may have assets it doesn’t mean that in every single year you have great weather and great commodity prices to generate a profit, in some years you have poor prices and poor weather, meaning you end up borrowing just to look after the farm and your staff, under this plan you would also be borrowing to pay your wealth tax.
“With the inheritance tax this could very well force many farming families off the land in the event of an untimely death of a family member. The surviving family members would be left with a tax bill and the only way to settle it may well be selling the farm. This was the outcome in past when we last had an inheritance tax in this country.
“Either the Greens just dislike farmers, or they forgot about us when scribbling new taxes on the napkin. They’ve decided anyone who owns a decent slice of land is a rich prick. Chlöe Swarbrick should speak to the farmers I’ve met – or any farmer – who face seasonal financial stress the likes of which she could never imagine.
“The end result of these policies would likely be a lot less family farms out there. Probably replaced by Soviet-style collective farms as this seems to be where they draw their agricultural inspiration from.”
